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Business News/ Industry / Telecom/  Reliance Jio’s plea on Airtel ads on internet speeds dismissed
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Reliance Jio’s plea on Airtel ads on internet speeds dismissed

Mumbai's Espalande court dismisses Reliance Jio's plea against Airtel ads on internet speeds, calls them nothing but a marketing policy

Bharti Airtel ads say the network provides fastest internet speeds in India, a claim that Reliance Jio said amounts to conspiracy, defamation and breach of trust. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/MintPremium
Bharti Airtel ads say the network provides fastest internet speeds in India, a claim that Reliance Jio said amounts to conspiracy, defamation and breach of trust. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

New Delhi: In a setback to Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, a metropolitan magistrate at the Esplanade court in Mumbai has dismissed Jio’s plea that Bharti Airtel Ltd’s advertisements, proclaiming the network to be India’s fastest, amounts to conspiracy, defamation and breach of trust.

The court in its order said in the era of technology, service providers or any other business run by firms are in competition and they claim themselves to be the best by way of advertisement of any mode in order to expand their own business.

“It is nothing but a marketing policy. Thus, during this voyage of technology era, if any service provider has chosen to adopt test methodology of its services by an independent agency wherein the said independent agency has authenticated by its certificate, then there could not have been any dissatisfaction or wrongful losses to other competitors including complainant," metropolitan magistrate K.G. Paldewar said in an order on 27 July.

In March, Reliance Jio accused Bharti Airtel of airing misleading ads on network data speed.

Reliance Jio filed a complaint with advertising industry watchdog Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), urging it to take action against the Airtel advertisement, which claims it is “officially India’s fastest network". The ad cited Ookla LLC, which tests network speeds using the Speedtest app. Ookla gave Airtel the fastest mobile carrier award in February based on consumer-initiated Speedtest results in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.

Reliance Jio questioned the Speedtest methodology. Ookla is not recognized by either the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) or the Department of Telecommunications, Reliance Jio argued, adding that meant Airtel could not use the word “officially" in its advertisements.

ASCI, after investigating the matter, asked Airtel to withdraw the advertisement. Jio moved the metropolitan magistrate’s court after Airtel advertisements started to appear again in June. Jio alleged that it lost reputation and money on the campaign that amounts to conspiracy, defamation and breach of trust.

“Only because of certification by independent agency that does not amount any wrongful loss to the complainant or public at large. Thus by no stretch of imagination, any offence as alleged by the complainant is made out against the accused. The complaint also speaks about the losses to the public at large. However, the present complaint is not in a representative character to represent the public at large... The grievance of public at large is not within the scope of cognizance of offence vide this complaint," Paldewar said.

An Airtel spokesperson said that the company is grateful to the court for dismissing “frivolous allegations" against Airtel.

“Bharti Airtel takes great pride in maintaining the highest standards of ethics and compliance," the spokesperson said. Jio did not respond to an email seeking comments till press time.

Data speeds have gained much attention after the entry of Jio, which is seeking to ride on growing demand for data in India. Jio believes data will change the course of mobile telephony in India, with its promoter Mukesh Ambani calling data “the new oil".

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Published: 07 Aug 2017, 05:00 AM IST
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