Delhi High Court refuses to order removal of IVR service from emergency calls

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to pass orders for removal of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system from emergency calls [Ganga Saran v Commissioner of Police]..A division bench of acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that IVR acts as a filtration system to weed out the prank and unintended calls.The Court said that while the IVR system may not be perfect, it is the best one we have.“Today, even when you reach website, they ask you if you are human or robot. There is data to suggest that 97.5% calls on emergency numbers are either prank calls or unintended calls, therefore, we think there is a rationale behind having the IVR facility,” the Court said..It further noted that directing an emergency call straight to an executive will have grave consequences as this will require a significant increase in the manpower.“Let the situation stabilise a bit. Your suggestions may be for a perfect system but your request will have unintended effects. The system will collapse. The best cannot be the enemy of the good… The system today may not be perfect but is the best and we can live with the best,” the Court remarked.It also said that it will pass a detailed order and dispose of the plea..The Court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by one Ganga Saran.Advocate Deepti Gupta appeared for the petitioner and argued that IVR in emergency calls act as hindrance to emergency situations and all over the world, the practice is that such calls are answered by executives.Gupta contended that there are times where children or blind people make emergency calls and it is not possible for them to follow the IVR instructions.Delhi Government Standing Counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi told the Bench that its emergency call centres receive over 8.2 lakh calls every day of which only 17,000 are genuine.He said that if all the calls have to be answered by humans directly, it would require at least 10,000 more people.