Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala criticised TRAI’s move to restrict spam labels on 140 and 1600 series calls, saying the rule has backfired. He claimed over 51 million calls from these numbers go unanswered daily, while users have lost trust in the series due to rising spam and scam concerns.

Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala has publicly criticised the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India after the regulator sought powers to stop caller identification apps from showing any information on calls from the 140 and 1600 number series. Jhunjhunwala shared his reaction on X, laying out how the directive has affected users since it was first enforced in late 2025.

How did the directive backfire?

Jhunjhunwala explained that in late 2025, TRAI had directed businesses to route calls through the 140 series for telemarketing and the 1600 series for banking, financial services and insurance related service and transaction calls. The intention was to help consumers identify legitimate business communication. However, TRAI also mandated that Truecaller not show any community reported spam information for these two series, meaning the app could never flag 140 or 1600 numbers as spam regardless of how many users reported them.

Jhunjhunwala said this restriction did not sit well with the company. He wrote that Truecaller has helped hundreds of millions of Indians every single day for 17 years and questioned why the regulator would want to censor or suppress trusted information from people. He said Truecaller had flagged this concern to TRAI in advance, adding, "we knew exactly what would happen next."