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Rajeswari vs. Union of India

Not available · 2023 INSC 968Decided 30 Oct 2023
Not available
Sanjiv Khanna · S.V.N. Bhatti

Background

The petitioner, Rajeswari, filed a writ petition apparently concerned with the risks of a mobile number being deactivated and later reallocated to a new subscriber, and the resulting privacy/data exposure (e.g., WhatsApp account data tied to the old number). The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), as respondent no. 2, filed a counter affidavit explaining the safeguards already in place for recycled mobile numbers.

Decision Breakdown

The Court noted TRAI's counter affidavit confirming that a deactivated or disconnected mobile number is not reallocated to a new subscriber for at least 90 days. It also recorded that WhatsApp's own help center policy is to treat an account as inactive after 45 days, and if that number is then activated on a different device, WhatsApp removes the old account's data. Based on these existing safeguards, the Court held that it was for the earlier subscriber to take adequate precautions, such as deleting the WhatsApp account linked to the old number and erasing locally/cloud-stored WhatsApp data, before giving up the number. Finding no further judicial intervention necessary, the Court declined to proceed further and dismissed the writ petition, along with any pending applications.

Lesson Learnt

If you are giving up or losing a mobile number, proactively delete/deactivate linked accounts (like WhatsApp) and erase associated stored data yourself. The law does not impose a duty on telecom companies or app providers to prevent all such privacy risks beyond the existing 90-day non-reallocation window and platform-level inactivity policies.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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