“We hold the telecom company guilty for indulging in highly unfair trade practice affecting crores of subscribers by adopting unfair and deceptive method to promote its business interest directly as well as indirectly,” Commission President Justice J D Kapoor said.

Vodafone had launched in July last year a scheme ‘Baaton se banaiye sona, bees minute mein’ under which it offered 10 gold coins and one bumper prize of Maruti SX4 through a lucky draw to the subscribers whose talk time was more than 20 minutes in a day.

The Commission held  the company by putting a condition of calling at least 20 minutes in a day had promoted its interest “unethically” and to “detriment” of crores of consumers by encouraging them to make unnecessary calls. “There is no consumer interest involved. Interest of consumers means that benefits should reach every consumer and not to a few or ten of eleven among them,” it said.

To honour loyalty
It said Vodafone had made roughly Rs 2 crore during the promotion period through unnecessary calls by the subscribers to enable them to participate in the contest and out of it, only a few lakh rupees were given in prizes.
The company contended that aim of the scheme was not to generate profit but was rather intended to give benefits to its high-end users and to honour their loyalty.  Vodafone claimed, “the scheme is perfectly legitimate and legal and cannot be termed as unfair trade practice as no extra money was charged from the subscribers.”

The Commission was, however, not satisfied with the company’s contention and allowed the contention of the complainant NGO Society for Catalysts.