The Delhi High Court, on Tuesday, conducted the hearing of a matter regarding online payment platform Paytm’s allegations against telecom operators not blocking “phishing” activities across networks.
During the brief hearing held via video conferencing, Delhi High Court faced some technical glitch.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for Paytm ribbed Kapil Sibal, "you were the Tech Minister at one point, you should be answerable."
Sibal countered by stating, "I gave suggestions, they didn't get implemented. I wanted Akash tablets to be given to students, look what's happening now."
Sibal served as Minister of Communications and Information Technology from 2011 to 2014.
For those unversed, The Aakash project was Sibal's brainchild when he was the HRD minister from 2009 to 2012. The idea was to provide low-cost computing device at subsidised rate to students to enable them access Internet for educational purposes.
The court banter refers to educational institutions migrating to online mode of learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, Delhi HC granted 6 weeks to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to show progress made in implementing the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preferences Regulations (TCCCPR) 2018, guidelines which mandates telecoms to register telemarketers using their platforms so that fraud through unsolicited commercial calls can be prevented.
The matter came to light after TRAI termed as "misconceived" the plea moved in the Delhi High Court by Paytm alleging that telecom operators are not blocking "phishing" activities over various mobile networks.
Phishing is a cyber-crime where people are contacted by e-mail, phone calls or text messages by someone posing as a legitimate representative of an organisation to lure them to part with their sensitive data, including banking and credit card details and passwords.
