Mobile users have received unfavorable news from the Supreme Court, as telecom companies are now allowed to reassign inactive numbers that have been dormant for 90 days to other users without restrictions.

Notably, a petition filed by lawyer Rajeshwari to halt this procedure was rejected by the Supreme Court, headed over by Justice Sanjeev Khanna and SVN Bhatti.

In addition, this Supreme Court bench has offered insights on data confidentiality during this case.

According to TRAI rules, till now the telecom company deactivates the number which remains closed for 90 days and allots it to another user, against which lawyer Rajeshwari had filed a petition in the Supreme Court. Advocate Sanjay Kapuri replied in the Supreme Court on behalf of TRAI and the Supreme Court seemed completely satisfied with this.

In its affidavit, TRAI informed the Supreme Court that the DoT had issued two directions in April 2017, mandating that “the cellular mobile telephone connection of a subscriber deactivated for non-usage/disconnection on the request of the subscriber Will not be allotted to any other customer.” "A minimum period of 90 days from the date of deactivation/disconnection, or until the expiry of such longer period as may be specified by the Licensee."

The Supreme Court, while dismissing the petition, said, “We are not inclined to proceed with the present writ petition, as it is clear from the counter affidavit filed by TRAI that the mobile telephone number, once deactivated due to non-use Added or deleted upon request. of the customer, is not allotted to any new customer for a period of at least 90 days. It is up to the former customer to take adequate steps to maintain confidentiality.

On the petitioner's concern about breach of confidential data, the bench said, “The customer can prevent misuse of WhatsApp data by deleting the WhatsApp account linked to the previous phone number and erasing WhatsApp data stored on local device memory/cloud/drive.