JAIPUR WOOLLEN QUALITY CARPETS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner M/s Jaipur Woollen Quality Carpets a partnership firm, has a telephone connection (No. 44308) and it is aggrieved against the two bills raised by the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 which were received by the petitioner on July 21, 1989 for Rs. 20,06l/-and the other received on September 21, 1989 for Rs. 30,000/. THE petitioner is also aggrieved against the demand raised by the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 of the additional security of Rs. 25,000/- for restoring the telephone connection which was disconnected for non-payment of the amount.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that prior to the two bills in dispute, moreso,immediately preceding the two bills, tie used to receive the bills of for lessera amount and the petitioner has given the details in para 5 at page 4 of the writ petition as under: Date of Bill Amount. 21. 7. 1988 4,884/- 21. 9. 88 5,739/- 21. 11. 88 7,312/- 21. 1. 89 4,065/- 21. 3. 89 4,717/- 21. 5. 89 5,710/- According to the petitioner a perusal of the aforesaid bills and their amount will show that the amount of bills never exceeded Rs. 8000/- and except the disputed once it never reached Rs. 20,061/- for two months of Rs. 30422/- for 21 days, as will appear from the aforesaid two bills in dispute dated July 21, 1989 and September 21, 1989. According to the petitioner after receipt of the two bills he immediately raised the dispute on October 9, 1989 vide Annr. 1 and requested the respondents for investigation of excess metering and did not deposit the amount of bills without decision of the dispute. THE telephone was disconnected and when he requested for the reconnection of his telephone, he received a letter that an enquiry has been made and the complaint of the petitioner has been found to be frivolous and there is no error in the bills and the respondents declined to give any relief under letter dated November 2,1989. He again requested for consideration of the matter sympathetically but to no effect. He therefore made the payment of the outstanding bills vide letter dated March 15, 1990 through three cheques and again raised objections. He requested for shifting of his telephone but was informed by the respondents that 'no shifting to be normally allowed for three years' and they also demanded Rs. 25,000/- by way of additional security.

(3.) COMING to the facts of the instant case let us see as to whether the aforesaid guidelines/instructions for investigation/inquiry in respect of representation/complaint for excess billing were followed or not ? and also the relief which in such a situation the petitioner is entitled d ? It will be seen from the facts which have already been stated in the earlier part of this order that there can be no dispute that the excess billing in the two bi-monthly bills was more than 100% over any of the bi-monthly bills during the immediately preceding one year and the highest bill during that period was for Rs. 7,312/- which was dated November 21, 1988 and the bill dated July 21, 1989 was for Rs. 20,061/-and the bill dated September 21, 1989 was for Rs. 30,022/- What was the reason of this sudden spurt in the two disputed bills?. The petitioner had filed a representation on October 9, 1989, no doubt after the receipt of the second disputed bill dated September 21, 1989 and under letter Annr. 3 dated November 2, 1989 the petitioner was informed that his complaint has been enquired into and the metering equipment has been examined and no defect was found in them. The petitioner's telephone connection was disconnected. The court sent for the file under which the invest gation is said to have been made in the complaint of the petitioner. The file only contains 7 sheets. It does not appear from the file that the procedure referred to above in so far as the investigation in the complaint of excess billing was observed. It does not appear that the instructions referred to above were complied with and there is no material that the meter reading of the petitioner was watched and the sudden spurt/spurts were taken note of and the telephone line was ever placed on observations. A reference to the reasons for rejection of the complaint has already been made in the earlier part of this order and at the cost of repetition it may be said that the only ground on which the complaint/representation has been rejected and was not allowed is that no fault was found in the metering equipments and other equipments. This alone, in my opinion, was not sufficient to reject the complaint. It will therefore be seen that despite the detailed and elaborate procedure provided for safeguards in the matter of excess billing and the complaints the same was not followed. The investigation in the complaint therefore does not appear to be as was required to be as per the guidelines/instructions and the complaint of the petitioner was arbitrarily rejected. I have already said that sudden spurts can also be for other reasons which have been discussed in the earlier part of this order which are taken note of by the competent authorities. In the case of Santokh Singh (Supra) the learned Judges of the Gauhati High Court while holding that action of the department in rejecting the complaint was arbitrary and illegal and was not justified in para 17, said- In our opinion, unless the Department has got some material with it to show that the petitioner made excessive use of the telephone which might justify the exhorbitant bill it could not just rejected his claim on the ground that the recording of the reading from the meter was correct when it is an admitted position that the meter can record exhorbitantly high number of calls even without the subscriber making any such calls. The rejection of complaint was done in a perfunctory manner. No attempt was made to rule out the possibility of other major causes referred to above including possibility of mischief by its own empolyees. There is no reference to fortnightly meter readings. In short, nothing had been done except verifying the reading of the meter, comparing it with that shown in the bill. On finding it correct. the complaint was rejected just mechanically without any application of mind whatsoever. " Learned Judges further considered the relief to be granted and said that they would have considered sending the case back for fresh decision and to give suitable rebate to the subscriber, but because they were of the opinion it would have been futile exercise and no material of investigation after lapse of six years could be relevant. They issued directions to the Department to prepare fresh bills for the relevant periods under dispute including local calls. They said that simply by issuing directions fresh bills should be prepared and the charges should be equal to the average number of local calls charged during the six-bi-monthly period immediately preceding the period to which the first disputed bill relates plus 10% over the average and to grant rebate for calls in excess thereof in all the disputed bills. I have already said that in the present case the complaint of the petitioner against the excess billing in respect of two disputed bills has been rejected arbitrarily without following the procedure provided in the Instructions/guidelines referred to above.