UNHAPPY TIDINGS? SC quashes tribunal order, 200 SMSes per day cap back

New Delhi: The cap of 200 text messages per day per person came back into force on Monday with the Supreme Court staying the telecom appellate tribunal's decision quashing the limit imposed by the telecom regulatory body.     The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had challenged the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal's (TDSAT) decision before the apex court on the ground that the limit was enforced to strike a balance between the sender's right to freedom of speech and expression and the receiver's right to privacy.      A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and Gyan Sudha Misra stayed the TDSAT order after hearing brief arguments from senior advocate Krishnan Venugopal. It also issued a notice to Aditya Thackeray — on whose petition the TDSAT had quashed the limit as violative of right to freedom of speech and expression. The bench asked Aditya, son of Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, to file a response in six weeks.      Trai had first restricted text messages to 100 per day per mobile phone subscriber as part of its tough Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations. However, the limit was later raised to 200 messages per day per person.      The telecom regulator said the national average of text messages was just two per person per day.