On April 27, The Apex Court directed that a five member committee should be set up, who will be recommending guidelines to verify those who are applying for prepaid mobile connections. A judgement was given by the bench consisting of Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justice AK Ganguly and Justice Swatanter Kumar, who said that the committee would be headed by the secretary department of telecommunications (DoT).
The bench added that the committee should also have two members each from the Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India (TRAI) and the DoT. Justice Sawanter Kumar said, “We hereby direct the constitution of a Joint Expert Committee consisting of two experts from TRAI and two experts from DoT to be chaired by the secretary, ministry of communications and information technology, government of India.”
It is mandatory for the committee to resolve the issues on which TRAI has expressed its divergent views over the instructions issued by the DoT on March 14. The court while identifying the area of divergence which needed to be examined said that the committee should look after the issue whether re-verification should be undertaken by the service provider, the DoT itself or any other central body.
The court has also directed that the expert committee should also decide on which is the best mode to deliver the SIM cards to provide due verification.
