March 5: Reliance Telecom Ltd today declined to react to the charges of exploitation levelled against the cellular phone service provider in the city.

Reacting to the charges levelled by the Congress’ youth wing on the company’s directives to pre-paid customers to switch over to the post-paid regime, Reliance Telecom Ltd regional head C.R. Deka said the matter was sub-judice and so no comment could be made.

“What is there to say? Instead of defending ourselves and complicating matters, we will wait for the court to give its ruling. We have full faith in the judiciary and would like our well-wishers to have faith in the court of law,” Deka said.

Acknowledging that the petitioners in the case were also “fighting for the subscribers’ rights”, he said the company did not want to say anything against them. The case against the telecom major comes up for hearing on March 10 before a division bench of Gauhati High Court.

Deka said the company had “almost completed the distribution of new SIM cards through courier, distributors and their offices”.

The Reliance Telecom Ltd has been facing widespread criticism since it started the process of switching over mobile connections from pre to post-paid regime in December. An October 23 directive from the union ministry of telecommunications had ordered the only mobile phone service provider in the city to effect the change on security grounds. The petitioners in the case — city-based advocates Barua and B. Chakravorty — had contended in a PIL that the company’s move was arbitrary, putting additional financial burden on the subscribers. The PIL was accepted by the court on January 19.

A two-member division bench comprising chief justice P.P. Naolekar and Justice I.A. Ansari had on January 29 asked the company to explain the technical difficulties if it were to revert to the pre-paid regime. The court had also directed the Union government to explain the grounds on what basis the order was passed vis-à-vis security in the Northeast and the petitioners to explain as to why they felt the centre’s order was arbitrary. All the three parties have since filed their affidavits.

Outside the court, the Assam unit of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) and the Guwahati city district Youth Congress have accused the company of fleecing the subscribers on one pretext or other and for poor service. The NSUI had disrupted the distribution of SIM cards by ransacking the makeshift counters the company had set up at the Nehru Stadium last month, seeking return of the “unjustified security deposit”.

The NSUI had even adopted a resolution at a public meeting at the Guwahati Press Club last Sunday seeking the intervention of the President and the Prime Minister to “reign in the Reliance Telecom Ltd”.

The company, on the other hand, maintains that the call rate charged in the city is at par or less than those charged in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and other parts of the Northeast for similar services. The company had also said it had simply carried out the Centre’s directive in directing the customers to switch over to the post-paid regime.

The Guwahati city district Youth Congress yesterday sought the help of mobile subscribers in its fight against the company and said it would bring out a protest rally next week.