Truecaller has started a public fight with India’s telecoms regulator over rules governing caller ID apps, saying the country’s anti-spam framework is making it harder to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its largest market.
On Wednesday, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) led to to publicly challenge the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), accusing the watchdog of preventing Truecaller from displaying community-reported spam information for calls from the country’s dedicated 1400 and 1600 number series, a restriction it said had allowed abuse of those numbers and eroded trust in legitimate business calls.
The dispute arises from a framework inserted in 2024, under which Indian telecom authorities designated the 1400 and 1600 number series for commercial communications, with companies using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for calls related to services and transactions. TRAI later ordered the migration to the dedicated numbering series, saying the move would help consumers identify legitimate business communications and curb spam and scam calls.
The framework was implemented amid growing concerns over spam and fraudulent calls in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have implemented multiple measures to curb fraudulent communications. Last year, India’s Ministry of Communications saying Authorities disconnected more than 2.1 million fraudulent mobile numbers and took action against more than 100,000 entities over the past year, underscoring the magnitude of the challenge.
Jhunjhunwala argued that the policy has produced unintended consequences. Citing internal company data, he said consumers have increasingly lost trust in the designated number series, with Truecaller users ignoring 81% of 1400 series calls and 79% of 1600 series calls in the past eight months. During the same period, users manually blocked 74 million calls from the two number series, while daily blocking actions against 1600 series numbers have more than tripled since October 2025, it said.
Unable to flag those numbers as spam, Truecaller introduced a “Frequently Blocked” badge to alert users when many people have blocked a number from the designated series.
The unusually public criticism came after Indian business daily The Economic Times reported that TRAI had sought powers under the Indian Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps like Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall for labeling numbers of the designated 1400 and 1600 series as spam.
TRAI and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which would consider any such proposal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The dispute comes at a crucial time for Truecaller, whose core caller ID business has been facing increasing regulatory and competitive pressures like the company expands to new products and services. India remains its largest market by a wide margin, with more than 350 million his 500 million monthly active users based in the country, according to the company.
Jhunjhunwala said Truecaller would share its data with India’s IT Ministry as part of the regulatory process, arguing that any decisions on caller ID apps should be evidence-based.
“Penalize bad actors, not those like Truecaller who have a significant positive impact,” he wrote.
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