Delhi High Court dismisses plea against Truecaller with Rs 10,000 costs

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea seeking reconsideration of its decision to dismiss a petition alleging privacy violations by Truecaller, imposing a fine of Rs 10,000 on the petitioner.

A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora ruled that there were no grounds to review its previous order issued on February 12.

The petitioner, Ajay Shukla, had requested a review of the court's decision to dismiss his petition.

The petitioner's lawyer argued that the order was based solely on verbal arguments presented by the respondent authorities.

Opposing the review plea, the Centre's counsel argued that such actions amounted to an abuse of the legal process and needed to be dealt with firmly. The counsel further urged that heavy costs be imposed on the petitioner due to the involvement of government resources in responding to such petitions.

The high court had previously observed that a similar issue had been raised before the Supreme Court in another petition, which was later withdrawn without granting any liberty to approach the high court.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 Dismissed as withdrawn means you can't re-litigate," the bench had emphasized.

The petitioner's counsel contended that the "cause of action" in both petitions differed and asserted that the petition was not filed for publicity.

The petitioner alleged that Truecaller, a global caller ID platform, violated privacy rights by sharing data of third parties without consent, including mobile numbers and email IDs from users' phonebooks. Additionally, the petitioner claimed that Truecaller's feature allowing users to mark contact numbers as "spam" caused reputational and commercial damage.

The court's decision underscores the importance of legal scrutiny in cases involving privacy violations and the abuse of legal processes.