In a setback to Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, a metropolitan magistrate at the Esplanade court in Mumbai has dismissed Jio’s plea that Bharti Airtel Ltd’s advertisements, proclaiming the network to be India’s fastest, amounts to conspiracy, defamation and breach of trust.

The court in its order said in the era of technology, service providers or any other business run by firms are in competition and they claim themselves to be the best by way of advertisement of any mode in order to expand their own business.

“It is nothing but a marketing policy. Thus, during this voyage of technology era, if any service provider has chosen to adopt test methodology of its services by an independent agency wherein the said independent agency has authenticated by its certificate, then there could not have been any dissatisfaction or wrongful losses to other competitors including complainant,” metropolitan magistrate K.G. Paldewar said in an order on 27 July.

In March, Reliance Jio accused Bharti Airtel of airing misleading ads on network data speed.