Divisional Manager Telephones Lucknow vs Madhu Enterprises Lucknow

THE State Commission of U.P. by its Order dated the 17th September, 1991 have directed that the appellants here (the Divisional Manager, Telephones, Lucknow Circle, the District Manager, Telephones, Lucknow and the Accounts Officer, Telephones, Lucknow) should limit the total number of calls in respect of the telephone bills dated the 1st July, 1988, 1st November, 1988, 1st January 1989 and 1st March, 1989 for the Telephone No. 73738 to 20,000 local calls for each bill.

THE appellants have assailed the Order of the State Commission on various grounds : (i) The provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 are not applicable to the Department of Telecommunications. (ii) The telecommunication is not a service envisaged under Sec. 2(1)(o) of the Act and that the service rendered by the Telecommunication department is not a service as defined in the Act (iii) That in Sec. 7(b) of the Indian Telegraph Act there is provision for arbitration of the disputes the consumers may have with the Telecommunication Department and therefore, this would oust a Forum under the Consumer Protection Act from taking cognizance of such disputes.

There is no merit in these preliminary objections taken by the appellants. These objections have been taken by the Telecom Department in various other disputes between the subscribers and the Telecom Department/Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., at the original, appellate, and the revisional stages and it has been repeatedly held that the Telephone Department/Mahanagar Telephone Nigams also fall within the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and the subscribers as consumers of telephone service are entitled to seek relief from the Consumer Forums, wherever necessary.

THE short point in this appeal which needs consideration is whether under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, a Consumer Redressal Forum has the power to fix the maximum number of calls which the Forums considers as reasonable and fair to be billed for in a billing period. In this case the State Commission after considering each and every aspect came to conclusion that the total number of calls in respect of the bills for this telephone for the period ending dated 1.7.1988, 1.11.1988, 1.1.1989 and 1.3.1989 should not exceed 20,000 calls.

THE appellants have pointed out that the complainant had made complaints regarding excessive billing from time to time and that these were investigated and found to be unjustified. In particular the appellants have pointed out that the complainants complaint about excessive billing for the bills dated 1.3.1987 and 1.5.1987 were rejected after investigation. Again the complaint regarding excessive billing in the bill dated the 1st July, 1988 was also investigated. In fact the telephone was kept under observation twice, once in May, 1988 and again in September, 1988 for a period of 7 days each and the respondent was found to have made 2,816 calls and 3,252 calls respectively in these periods. According to the appellants, considering the number of calls recorded in a period of 7 days, the telephone bills were not excessive. The appellants have further pointed out that the respondent was using S .T.D. facility frequently for his business overseas and this explains why the number of calls in the bills was on the high side. There was no excessive billing.

IT is the Telecommunication Department which maintains the meters regarding calls made from a particular telephone. It is the responsibility of the Telecommunication Department to ensure that the metering equipment is efficient and that there is no incorrect metering regarding the calls. Unless, therefore, it can be established that the metering equipment is defective or has been manipulated, the calls metered for a particular telephone by the Department would form the proper basis of billing. It is not open to the Consumer Forums to determine arbitrarily the maximum number of calls that ought to be metered for the purpose of billing in respect of a particular telephone number. On the other hand, in this specific case, there is also ample evidence that, on a number of occasions, the complaints regarding excessive billing of the respondent were examined and found to be unjustified and that apparently excessive number of calls billed were due to the liberal use of the S.T.D. facility by the respondent subscriber. We are, therefore, unable to uphold the decision of the State Commission which is hereby set aside. The parties will bear their own costs. Complaint dismissed.