ABDUL AZIZ SULEMAN vs GENERAL MANAGER TELECOM

THE appellant has assailed the order dated 18th July, 1992 of the State Commissioner Karnataka in Complaint Case No. 2/91 which did not find any material to hold that there was any deficiency in service rendered by the Respondent-opposite party, General Manager, Telecom. The State Commission, therefore, dismissed the complaint. The appellant has attacked the order of the State Commission on various grounds.

TO appreciate the grounds of appeal, the relevant facts of the case and the findings of the State Commission are briefly noticed below. The appellant-complainant has six telephones and his complaint regarding inflated bills is in respect of five telephones only. According to him the excess amount billed on the five telephones is Rs. 2,64,329/-; in addition he has claimed Rs. 1,31,531/- towards expenses, legal costs, compensation etc.

THE appellant-complainant has diverse business, silk emporium, transport garage and according to the respondent, he is also in the business of tourism.

THE State Commission, after a painstaking analysis, has found that : (i) a general complaint regarding excessive billing in respect of the two residential telephones, was made by the appellant-complainant only in November, 1990. (ii) the earlier five complaints from 25th March, 1988 to 11th of August, 1990 made to the respondents were in respect of one residential telephone only viz. No. 561328 and that too only for two bills received by him in August, 1988 and October, 1988. (iii) a general complaint regarding excessive billing in respect of the five telephones was made to the State Commission only, instead of to the Respondent Telecom Department, on the 4th of January, 1991.

These complaints were investigated by the Department with reference to the fault cards, fortnightly bills etc. and no defect in the meters and no misuse of telephone or tampering with the telephones by the employees of the respondents was discovered.

CONSEQUENTLY , the State Commission came to the conclusion that the appellant-complainant had failed to discharge his onus of proving the allegations made in the complaint to the State Commission. Its finding was that no deficiency in service was established taking into account the investigations by the Department.

WE have gone through the memorandum of appeal and heard the counsel and we find that the appellant-complainant has miserably failed to challenge successfully the findings of the State Commission. In fact, there are reasons to believe that there was no justification for appealing against the order of the State Commission. The respondent-opposite party in its reply to the appeal of memorandum has pointed out that 90 bills in respect of five telephones were issued at regular intervals, each bill was separate and distinct. If the appellant had a bonafide grievance regarding excessive billing he should have, strictly speaking, made a complaint regarding such of these bills. He is now constructively estopped from raising the question of excessive billing in respect of the five telephones for the period 1988 of 1990.

THE appellant-complainant has at the appeal stage made out a case of excessive billing on the average of the bills for calls made by him for the year 1986 whereas in the complainant before the State Commission excessive billing was computed with reference to the average of the telephone bills made in the year 1987. Thus he has radically changed the basis of the complaint which is impermissible at the appeal stage.

FURTHER the average of the bills made in a particular period has been worked out by the appellant-complainant after including rental charges, trunk-call charges, international trunk-call charges, phonogram charges and charges for providing accessories etc. Such an average of the bills pertaining to a particular period is totally extraneous in relation to the complaint of excessive billing. We find substance in these contentions of the respondent-opposite party and these remained uncontested during the hearing before this Commission.

THE appellant-complainant has justified making complaint to the opposite party in respect of one residential telephone only from 1988 to 1990 on the ground that "the complainant was pursuing the said complaint only as a trial case, to follow it up vigorously and persistently without giving scope for multifarious actions and efforts and not to confuse action of one to the other and devote all his attention and concentration on a single complaint with the respondent for the time being to follow it up with others when met with success". Further that when it became clear that "Department would not give him relief and justice even on the one phone, rather the Department staff was taking advantage of the silence, to jack up the bills on the other phones, he had submitted the said complaint (in respect of the two residential telephones) as a last resort before going to the Commission". It is, to say the least a specious justification for filing the appeal and we have no doubt that he had been ill advised to do so perhaps because no court fee is payable for prosecuting cases before the consumer forums.

WE , therefore, dismiss the appeal and up-hold the order of the State Commission in toto. The appellant shall pay a sum of Rs. 3,000/- as costs to the Respondents.