HC dismisses with Rs 10K costs plea concerning privacy violation by Truecaller

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed with a cost of Rs 10,000 a plea to reconsider its decision refusing to entertain a public interest legislation alleging violation of people's right to privacy by Truecaller, a global caller ID platform.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora said no grounds were made out for review of its February 12 order.

The bench said the costs of Rs 10,000 shall be paid to the central government.

Petitioner Ajay Shukla sought a review of the court's order by which his petition was dismissed.

The petitioner's counsel said the order was passed only on the basis of oral submissions made on behalf of the respondent authorities.

The Centre's counsel opposed the review plea, saying this was an abuse of process of law and this type of misadventure needs to be dealt with strictly.

The counsel further contended that the petition be dismissed with heavy costs as the whole government machinery comes into motion whenever such petitions are filed.

The high court had earlier noted that the issue raised by the petitioner had been brought up before the Supreme Court through another plea which was withdrawn without the apex court granting him any liberty to approach the high court.

"You can't re-litigate. This will amount to abuse of the process of law. Dismissed as withdrawn means you can't re-litigate," the bench had said.

The petitioner's counsel had argued that the "cause of action" in the two petitions was different and the plea was not filed for publicity.

He claimed Truecaller provided caller ID services to 250 million (one million=10 lakh) subscribers in India by "bypassing the law".

The petitioner alleged that Truecaller shared data of third parties without consent, that is, mobile number and e-mail ID of contacts from the phonebook of the person using the mobile app.

The petitioner also claimed Truecaller causes "reputational loss and commercial loss" as it gives the option to mark contact numbers as "spam".