MADRAS PROVINCIAL CONSUMER ASSOCIATION vs Department of telecommunications

IN this petition filed by Shri R.R. Dalavai in his capacity as Chairman of the Madras Provincial Consumer Association, the reliefs prayed for are that this Commission should pass orders fixing a reasonable rate of interest as payable by the Department of Telecommunications to persons who have availed of the facility of the O.Y.T. scheme (own your telephone scheme) from the date of the making of deposits by them, that an amount of Rs. 320/-, which is said to be the residue remaining after adjustments made out of the deposit during a period of 20 years should be directed to be paid in full at the end of the 20th year and that the existing stipulation for deduction of Rs. 400/- for every year or part of a year during which the telephone had been in use of the subscriber prior to his surrendering the telephone should be refixed on a fair basis and the ceiling fixed at Rs. 6,000/- should be struck down as arbitrary.

THE O.Y.T. scheme offered by the Department of Telecommunications for enabling persons to get speedy allotments of telephones is a facility which a person may or may not opt to avail of on the basis of the exercise of his free will and choice. THE information bulletin issued by the Department, a copy of which forms part of the record before us, clearly stipulates the manner in which advance deposits would be adjusted and the rate at which and the period for which alone interest would be payable on such deposits. A person deliberately entering into a contract for the allotment of a telephone under the O.Y.T. scheme on those conditions with open eyes cannot thereafter be heard to complain that any of those terms or conditions are not just or fair. The following observations of the Supreme Court in the case of S. Narayana lyer v. The Union of India and Another in Civil Appeal No.325 (NCM) of 1970 are opposite in this context: "First, when any subscriber to a telephone enters into a contract with the State. The subscriber has the option to enter into a contract or not. If he does so, he has to pay the rates which are charged by the State for installation. A subscriber cannot say that the rates are not fair. No one is compelling one to subscribe. Second, Telephone Tariff is subordinate legislation and a legislative process. Under Indian Telegraph Act, Section empowers the Central Government to make rules inter alia for rates. These rules are laid before each House of Parliament. The rules take effect when they are passed by the Parliament. Third, the question of rates is first gone into by the Tariff Enquiry Committee. The Committee is headed by non-officials. The Tariff rates are placed before the House in the shape of Budget proposals. The Parliament goes into all the Budget proposals. The rates are sanctioned by the Parliament. The rates, therefore, become a legislative policy as well as a legislative process. The Courts have no jurisdiction under Article 226 to go into reasonableness of rates. These rates are decided as policy matter in fiscal planning. There is legislative prescription of rates. Rates are a matter for legislative judgment and not for judicial determination."

The legal position that emerges from the aforesaid ruling of the Supreme Court is that the tariff rates fixed under Section 7 for the Indian Telegraph Act read with Rule 434 of the Indian Telegraphs Rules are statutory in character and their reasonableness cannot be gone into even by a Court exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution since those rates are decided as policy matters in the process of fiscal planning.

ANOTHER difficulty in the way of the complainant is that the grievance put forward in the complaint does not relate to any "deficiency" in the service in respect of which alone relief can be sought under the Consumer Protection Act from a redressal forum constituted under the Act. In the light of the foregoing discussion we are constrained to hold that the petitioner is not entitled to any relief. This petition will accordingly stand dismissed. Appeal dismissed.