Truecaller CEO Criticises TRAI Policy, Says Users Overwhelmingly Choose to Block ‘Verified’ Spam

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to grant special powers to it, according to a report. The powers would reportedly allow the telecom authority to take action against call management apps like Truecaller, Hiya, and Whoscall, for blocking phone numbers starting with “140” and “1600”, which are reserved for telemarketers and firms managing transactions, respectively. Criticising the move, a Truecaller executive said that TRAI's 2025 mandate already restricts the company from tagging such numbers as spam.

Why Users Are Muting Calls From 140 and 1600 Series Numbers

Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala on Wednesday took to X to criticise recent moves by TRAI. The Economic Times recently reported that the regulatory body is seeking more powers from MeitY to regulate call management apps and online platforms, like Truecaller, for “wrongfully” tagging and blocking phone numbers starting with “140” and “1600”.

These two series of phone numbers are reserved for telemarketing firms and companies in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector, allowing users to identify them easily. The Truecaller executive says that the move “makes absolutely no sense”. He claims that TRAI's decision would “enable bad actors and give them an open playground to spam and scam” users. Calling the move “unacceptable”, Jhunjhunwala further said, “Penalise the bad actors, not the ones like Truecaller.”

Interestingly, the company CEO also revealed that in late 2025, TRAI asked Truecaller not to display community reports and spam information against 140 and 1600 series numbers, restricting the company from tagging such numbers as spam. This, Jhunjhunwala claims, led to a significant increase in the 140 and 1600 series phone numbers going unanswered. He says that over 5.1 crore calls from numbers starting with these two numbers go unanswered in India daily.

Truecaller users have started blocking more 1600 series numbers daily
Photo Credit: X/ Rishit Jhunjhunwala

While the company is restricted from displaying this information, the CEO further claims that the number of spam and scam reports by Truecaller users has also increased. On top of this, Jhunjhunwala says that users have now started blocking 140 and 1600 series phone numbers. In the last eight months, Truecaller users ignored 81 percent of calls from 140 series numbers and 79 percent of calls from 1600 series numbers, while blocking 7.4 crore 140 and 1600 series phone numbers in total, the executive said. Further, Truecaller users are said to be blocking 5.25 lakh of these series numbers daily.

Jhunjhunwala says that TRAI's 2025 mandate for call management apps has negatively impacted users and legit businesses. As a workaround, Truecaller introduced the “Frequently Blocked” badge for 140 and 1600 series phone numbers, while not marking them as spam. He says that TRAI seeking more powers over call management apps penalises the platforms instead of the bad actors by censoring community information.