Airtel accused of breaching CLI mechanism, may face 50 crore fine

Well-known mobile service provider in the country, Bharti Airtel may reportedly well be on its way to coughing up a whopping 50 crore, as a fine for having allegedly violated CLI norms. According to a report in The Times of India, Bharti Airtel attempted to conceal its CLI, or calling-line identification mechanism, and made promotional calls to non-Airtel consumers. If found guilty, Airtel may have to shell out a hefty fine. DoT, as per the report, stated that deceiving the CLI mechanism was a breach of the license conditions. The calling-line identification mechanism, is the one most of us are familiar with, and also refer to as Caller ID.

May be fined..

Therefore, with the tampering of the CLI norms, Airtel may be charged with the violation of Clause 41.19 (iv) of universal service access licence norms. According to this clause, the CLI mechanism cannot be tampered with, by any mobile operator, since CLI translates to security. Additionally, it is being learnt that in the Madhya Pradesh circle alone, several instances of the CLI mechanism being tampered with have come forward, by the way of complaints to the DoT. The report however also adds that Airtel denies having received any statement as such from the DoT, and would hence, not comment. 

Interestingly, Airtel had, according to the same report, confessed that an error had indeed occured on the part of its technical staff.