Anil Kumar Sen Sinha, J. - (1.) This Rule was issued on a Writ petition. On an application made on March 11, 1959 the petitioner had obtained a telephone connection allotted to him by the Respondents. It is not in dispute that on August 5, 1969 he was given the telephone connection at his the then place of business at No. 15, Ganesh Chandra Avenue. The petitioner shifted his place of business from the aforesaid premises No. 15, Ganesh Chandra Avenue to Premises No. 6-C, Gopal Banerjee Lane. The latter premises comes within the telephone Zone No. 46. On May 8, 1970, the petitioner applied for the shifting of his telephone connection from premises No. 15, Ganesh Chandra Avenue to premises No. 6-C, Gopal Banerjee Lane. Before he could get any reply to the aforesaid application of his he was in a hurry as he was leaving the premises and on May 25,1970 he informed the authorities that his existing connection may be discontinued forthwith and the instrument concerned be taken over in deposit pending the transfer of the connexion to the new premises as applied for by him. On the day following, that is, May 26, 1970 he. however, got a reply from the authorities to his application for shifting, the relevant part whereof is set out hereunder : "Kindly refer to your letter mentioned above regarding shift of telephone. Government have recently laid down a rule that shift from one exchange area to another will normally be allowed only if the applicants would either have been provided a telephone connection in the exchange area to which the shift is required, on the basis of their original application on the cases where the existing telephone is working in the exchange continuously for three years. The existing telephone was provided to you on the basis of an application dated 11,3.59 registered in ordinary category and is working in the present exchange for less than three years. Neither the applicant for telephone in exchange area who applied prior to you have yet been provided telephone connections, nor your telephone is working in the present exchange for 3 years. As such, we very much regret that the shift asked by you cannot be carried out at this stage. Kindly intimate whether the telephone is required to be temporarily disconnected in order to avoid misuse of the same. Kindly note that rental benefit for the disconnection period will not be admissible till shift is qualified. You are also requested to intimate where the bills will be sent in future. In case no reply is received regarding bill instructions, it will continue to be sent at the old address and the department will not be responsible for non-receipt by you. Yours faithfully, Sd/ - Illegible. For Contract Officer (I) Calcutta Telephones.
(2.) On May 27, 1970 the authorities, however, disconnected the existing connection and took away the instrument concerned.
(3.) Since then it is a long history of representations being made by the petitioner objecting to realisation of rental without giving him a connection on transfer as prayed for by him and objecting to the various other irregularities like the issue of improper and incorrect bills as against the petitioner. Ultimately on August 7, 1971 the petitioner was informed by the authorities as follows:- "This is to inform you that the above line was installed in 23 Exch. in the month of August, 1969, and this line is qualified for a shift to 46 Exch. after 3 years working at the existing place as per rule. The date of original application also does not come within the ceiling date. As such your request for shift will be taken up in August, 1972".;