The High Court (HC) has issued a ban on hiking mobile call rate and charging for call drop from subscribers.

The court also issued two separate rules asking why hiking mobile charge without consent from the subscribers and why sending unsolicited SMS to the subscribers should not be declared illegal.

The telecommunication secretary, BTRC chairman and secretary, mobile operators-Grameen Phone, Airtel, Robi Axiata, Banglalink and Teletalk authorities have been asked to respond to the rules within four weeks.

The HC bench of Justice Tariqul Hakim and Justice Md Suhrawardy gave the orders on Thursday (Dec 13) after hearing a petition challenging the sending of irritating SMS to users by mobile phone companies, rise of call charges and demanding compensation to users for call drop.

Earlier on Thursday, members of the Law Reporters’ Forum, M Badiuzzaman, Mehedi Hassan Dalim, President of the mobile phone users association, Mahiuddin Ahmed, and Supreme Court lawyers Advocate, Rashidul Hassan, lodged the writ.

The writ wanted a court directive telling the mobile companies to safeguard the rights of users and form a committee to assess financial loss of users due to call drop and pay compensation.

Lawyer for the writ submitters, Advocate Ishrat Hassan, said, “The imposition of additional call charges in August without seeking opinion of subscribers is illegal and contrary to subscribers’ rights.”

According to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, BTRC, in the last 13 months there were 222 billion call drops by operators, said the lawyer and added, “Grameen Phone is on top of call drops with 1.03 billion times, followed by Robi with 761 million times.

In 2014, several operators began giving compensation for call drops and carried out campaigns but the compensation stopped after a few days, which resulted in grievance among subscribers.
Operators were supposed to give compensation from last January but since no step was taken, a writ was lodged on Dec 10.