The Tele Communications Act 2023 which was passed by the Parliament in December 2023 and received presidential assent on December 24, 2023. Some sections of the Act were notified for effect on 26 th June 2024 and More on July 5th 2024.
One of the immediate observation is that instead of designating the TDSAT as the Appellate as the immediate appellate authority after Adjudication, there is another appeal committee in between. Both ITA 2000 and DPDPA 2023 makes TDSAT the first appellate authority after adjudication or DPB inquiry. This has some merit so that matters of technical nature can be handled by the appeal committee and TDSAT will be left to deal only with the advanced legal matters.
Another matter that has been discussed in the past and may surface again is whether the messaging services could come under the Telecommunications Act because the definition of “Telecommunication” is provided as
“Telecommunication” means transmission, emission or reception of any messages, by wire, radio, optical or other electro-magnetic systems, whether or not such messages have been subjected to rearrangement, computation or other processes by any means in the course of their transmission, emission or reception”
Chapter IX of this Act covers offences and could interfere with ITA 2000 offences. Appropriate explanations in the rules may help in resolving the differences between the two Acts.
Naavi
