Truecaller has launched a public battle with India’s telecoms regulator over rules governing caller ID programs, saying the country’s anti-spam framework makes it difficult to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its biggest market.
CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) on Wednesday It led to X In open defiance of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), it accused watchdog Truecaller of preventing it from displaying community-reported spam data for calls from the country’s dedicated 1400 and 1600 series of numbers, saying the restriction allowed abuse of those numbers and undermined confidence in legitimate business calls.
The controversy stems from the frame presented In 2024, India’s telecom authorities designated the 1400 and 1600 number series for commercial communications, with businesses using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for service and transaction-related calls. TRAI later ordered the move to a specific numbering series, saying the move would help consumers identify legitimate business communications and curb spam and scam calls.
The framework comes amid growing concerns about spam and scam calls in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have taken multiple measures to curb fraudulent communications. Last year, India’s communications ministry he said authorities disconnected more than 2.1 million fraudulent mobile numbers and took action against more than 100,000 businesses in the previous year, underscoring the scale of the problem.
Jhunjhunwala argued that the policy had unintended consequences. Citing internal data, the company said consumers are increasingly losing confidence in the assigned number series, with Truecaller users ignoring 81% of calls from the 1400 series and 79% from the 1600 series over the past eight months. During the same period, users manually blocked 74 million calls from two series of numbers, while daily blocking actions against 1,600 series numbers have more than tripled since October 2025.
Unable to flag those numbers as spam, Truecaller instead introduced a “Frequently Blocked” icon to alert users when a number from a designated series has been blocked by multiple people.
The unusual public criticism came after India’s business daily The Economic Times informed TRAI has sought powers under India’s Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID programs such as Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall to label numbers in the 1400 and 1600 series identified as spam.
TRAI, which would review such a proposal, and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The controversy comes at a crucial time for Truecaller, a major caller ID business faces increasing regulatory and competitive pressures as a company expanding into new products and services. India remains its largest market by a wide margin More than 350 million his 500 million monthly active users According to the company, it is located in the country.
Jhunjhunwala said Truecaller would share its data with India’s IT ministry as part of the regulatory process, and demanded that any decision on caller ID apps be based on evidence.
“Punish the bad actors, not the ones like Truecaller who make a significant positive impact,” he said.
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