M S PANDIYARAJAN vs BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD

THE complainant in C. O. P. No. 18/2003 on the file of the District Forum, Theni is the appellant herein.

HIS case was as follows: He was the subscriber of a telephone. He was provided with STD facility. He received the bill dated 10. 9. 2002 for the period from 1. 7. 2002 to 31. 8. 2002 for Rs. 7,415. When he enquired the opposite party, they furnished the details of the telephone numbers that were frequently called by the complainant. The complainant or his family members never made calls to those numbers. Subsequently also he received the bill for the period 1. 9. 2002 to 31. 10. 2002 for Rs. 1,233. This bill also was wrong. As the amounts were not paid, the telephone was disconnected subsequently. Attributing negligence, the complaint case to be filed. The defence set up by the opposite parties was as follows: The complainant was provided with dynamic locking facility. On 28. 7. 2002 a password was registered in the instrument and the connection was locked and immediately within a few minutes the lock was released. Thereafter, the instrument was not locked at all. All the calls were made to Madras and they were done by his son in connection with his course. In the previous bill also, calls were made from the complainant''s house to Heber Hall Mess in Christian College, Tambaram.

On the side of the complainant, Ex. A1 to Ex. A15 were marked while on the side of the opposite parties Ex. B1 to Ex. B13 were marked. The District Forum found that the complainant had not established his case of deficiency in service on the side of the opposite party and dismissed the complaint.

IT is as against that the present appeal has been filed. Mr. V. Balaji, learned Counsel for the complainant/appellant submitted that during the period of dispute viz. , 1. 7. 2002 to 31. 10. 2002, two bills had been issued to the complainant. According to the opposite parties, the complainant''s son made all the calls to Madras in connection with his course. The complainant had filed Ex. A15. The certificate issued by Subbalakshmi Lakshmipathy College of Science dated 27. 10. 2003 would show that the complainant''s son had attended classes for a period of 83 days out of 104 working days during the period 26. 6. 2002 to 31. 10. 2002 and this would categorically disprove the contention of the opposite parties. The District Forum had erroneously rejected Ex. A13 and Ex. A14 on the ground that originals had not been produced and they had not been attested. All the documents were public documents and the genuineness of the documents was beyond doubt. Again the opposite parties had not furnished the investigation report under Section 7b of the Indian Telegraph Act.

PER contra, the learned Counsel for the opposite parties made the following submissions: The District Forum had held that Ex. B3 would show that only on 28. 7. 2002, a password was registered in the instrument and the connection was locked at 19. 34. 14 hours and the lock was released at 19. 36. 55 hours on the same date itself and subsequently it was not at all locked. The complainant had, therefore, not followed the instruction given regarding the use of dynamic locking facility. Ex. A13 and Ex. A14 had been rightly rejected by the District Forum. They had not been stated to be true copies of the original and the authority concerned had not also attested the same. So far as Ex. A15 was concerned the letter addressed to the complainant by the college authorities to the effect that his son was present in the college on 83 days out of total number of 104 days, had also not been signed by the college authorities concerned. Only the Counsel had attested the documents. The three documents had been rightly rejected by the District Forum. That would show that the complainant''s claim that he and his wife were working and that they were not available during day time at their residence had not been established. When once it had not been established, there was no scope for holding that during the alleged absence of the complainant and his wife from the residence, the departmental staff would have misused the telephone and the bill had shot up. The District Forum had rightly held against the complainant and no exception could be taken to the same. We have gone through the materials on record. We are satisfied that the District Forum came to the right conclusion in dismissing the complaint. A perusal of the pleadings and the documents filed clearly shows that the complainant''s case has no truth in it. It is worthwhile to refer to the contents of the relevant portions of the version of the opposite parties. The complainant disputed the bill dated 10. 9. 2002, which was for the period from 1. 7. 2002 to 31. 8. 2002 as the bill showed an amount of Rs. 7,415. The complainant felt that it was abnormal and he requested for the details of the calls made from his telephone. The details were not available from the exchange but the list was shown to the complainant. After verifying the fact that most of the calls were made to Madras he was convinced that they were done by his son in connection with his course, but as an afterthought later with mala fide intention he disputed the calls. It would appear that the calls were made to Heber Hall Mess in Christian College, Tambaram. The numbers are 044-2375767, 2398654. Numbers 2791684 and 2391335 were PTs/std PTs available just in front of Christian College. Another No. Ms-2460598 was residential connection in Tambaram near Christian College in which some students were residing in the ground floor of the building. Thus it would be clear that the calls were mainly made only in relation to the catering subject. Moreover on an analysis of the calls it was found that these numbers were contacted during breakfast time, meals time, tea time and at night supper time. It would thus be clear that the complainant''s telephone connection was a residential one and the calls must have been dialled either by his son or by the members of his family to contact the students or the mess people. The other number dialled was 0424-259991 functioning at Erode. There was thus enough material to show that all the calls had emanated only from the complainant''s residential phone. Not only that, as already noted, soon after locking the dynamic lock, within a few minutes it was unlocked/disconnected. Thus we are convinced that the complainant had put forward a false case and the District Forum had rightly held against the complainant and dismissed the complaint. There is no case made out for interference. In fine, the appeal fails and the same is dismissed. No costs. Appeal dismissed.