Forged papers for mobile connection to attract police action

Tougher guidelines by the Department of Telecom, which took effect today, make operators responsible for inaccurate information provided by subscribers for taking new pre-paid and post-paid mobile connections.

Under the new rules, the authorised person selling SIM cards will have to give an undertaking that he has seen the applicant and matched the photograph attached on the application form.

Retailers and franchisees selling mobile SIM cards will have to register police complaint against subscribers if they submit forged documents to get the connections.

All the telecom operators across the country are required to comply with the new guidelines.

"By and large we are compliant with most of the norms though there are a few areas for which we have sought clarifications from DoT like verification of date of birth and age," GSM industry body COAI director general Rajan S Mathews said.

He said the government has indicated that the operators have to verify certain documents which include date of birth and age of users.

"We have asked DoT what should we do in case if the user has no documents related to his date of birth," he said. COAI is expecting a reply on the issues in the next few days.

According to the guidelines, "In cases where forged documents are submitted by the subscriber and originals are also forged, police complaint or FIR shall be lodged by the PoS (Point of

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