The Delhi High Court has removed the 200 SMS/day limit through a mobile phone SIM for personal communications, saying that the current SMS spam guidelines infringe the freedom of speech of the citizens, and the conditions imposed upon citizens are not reasonable, reports PTI (via NDTV). This follows a petition filed by Anil Kumar, secretary of an NGO, Telecom Watchdog in December 2011, after which the Delhi High Court had issued notices to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the central government questioning TRAI’s cap of 200 SMSes per day per SIM. SMS Spam Guidelines Remain That being said, the High Court has rejected the removal of restrictions on unsolicited commercial calls and commercial text messages, stating that the limits put in place by the regulator TRAI is valid. It noted that TRAI had found that these calls and text messages were disturbing the recipients and intruding into their privacy by calling them for their own commercial gains. Further, the Delhi high court also allowed TRAI to formulate more appropriate guidelines to regulate these unsolicited text messages. In September 2011, TRAI had directed all access providers to limit sending of more than one hundred SMS per day per SIM or three thousand SMS per month per SIM and ensure that any commercial communication including SMS, other than transactional messages, is sent to a customer only between 0900 Hrs to 2100 Hrs. In November 2011, TRAI had extended the daily SMS limit from the existing 100 SMS to 200 SMS and had imposed an additional 5 paise charge on Promotional SMS. TRAI had also…
