N.KANNADASAN, J. - (1.) The appellant is the opposite party and the respondent is the complainant before the District Forum.
(2.) The complainant has approached the District Forum by contending that for the period from 1.8.2001 to 30.9.01, there was an excess billing and even though the complainant was hospitalised due to his ill health, the opposite parties have wrongly claimed bills and when enquiries were made by him, proper reply was not furnished. The District Forum has allowed the complaint, wherein a sum of Rs.1000/- was ordered towards compensation for mental agony and a sum of Rs.1000/- towards cost and a further direction was issued to furnish detail of the phone calls for the disputed period. The present appeal is filed as against the said order.
(3.) A perusal of the materials available on record discloses that immediately on receipt of the communication from the complainant, the opposite parties have chosen to send replies in Ex.A4 to A7. After repeated correspondences, the matter was also investigated and an investigation report is also filed as Ex.B1. As per the said report, there is no defect in the meter. Though a contention was raised before the District Forum that the telephone was used for local calls, as well as the 95 calls, for which the charges are slightly higher, and t/; he complainant has suppressed the said fact that the District Forum has not considered the said arguments. Apart from this, as per the existing procedure, as evident from the circular of the appellant department, the details of the calls would not be kept for a longer period. In the case on hand, the complainant has chosen to approach the opposite parties belatedly, after the deletion of such details from the computer. There is nothing on record to suggest that the opposite parties have willfully suppressed the said details. Hence we are not inclined to accept the reasoning of the District Forum in allowing the complaint by holding that there is deficiency on the part of the opposite party.;