The complainant Rekha Jha has come to this Forum for redressal of her grievances against the OP Nos.1 and 2 for arbitrarily transform prepaid service into post paid service of the Airtel telecommunication u/s 12 of the C.P. Act, 1986.
The complaint in brief states that the OP-1 has arbitrarily transformed her Airtel prepaid service bearing SIM card No.9933613991 to post paid service bearing the same while she went to the OP-1 for Aadhaar card linking to her SIM Card.
Though the complainant paid Rs.299/- to the OP-1 for prepaid service connection but it has been activated to post paid service. The complainant has submitted a bill amounting to Rs.1467.63/- for post paid charge through email. Though the complainant had sent advocate notice dated 01/12/2017 with a request to withdraw the post paid connection and to transfer it to pre paid scheme as before but the OP-1 had paid no heed.
The OP-1 had paid a deaf ear to the summons of this Forum also. The OP-2 through their learned lawyer had raised the question of the maintainability of the instant case within the purview of the C.P. Act as the telecom service is guided by the Indian Telegraph Act 1885, Indian warless Act 1993 and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act 1997 rules.
A date for hearing on the issue of the maintainability of the case within purview of the CP Act 1986 was fixed on 27.04.2018.
On 27.04.2018 on the point of maintainability of the case, the OP-2 argued that under section 7 B of the Indian Telegraph Act 1985 and as per rules of the TRAI redressal of any grievance regarding telecom service is vested on the appellate authority of TRAI or concerned telecom service authority. Moreover, the instant complainant has not paid her dues since October, 2017 as submitted documents kept in record to this Forum. The documents filed by the OP-2 reveals that the complainant submitted his application in customer relationship form for post paid service on 25.09.2017 and thereafter each 24th of the next month bill has been raised for the post paid service. The bill filed by the OP-2 proves that the complainant has got 3 consecutive bills on October 24, November 24 and December 24, 2017 a total amount of Rs.2081.80/-. But the complainant has paid nothing.
The complainant on arguments had cited some judgments and rulings regarding the jurisdiction of this Forum to adjudicate the case. In reply to the question to the Forum the complainant had admitted that she had not paid any amount of the bill and stated that she has personally requested the OP-1 time and again after getting the Post paid bill for the first month to reverse her post paid service into prepaid service. Even she had sent an advocate’s notice to the OP-1 for reversal but with no result.
DECISION WITH REASONS
From the above discussion it comes to the point that a special law rides over general law. The consumer protection Act 1986 is also a special law. So this Forum has the power to adjudicate the instant case. But paying nothing to the service provider the complainant has lost her credibility of a consumer. The OP-1 being one of the representatives of Bharti Airtel Ltd. as stated in Para 4 by the Ld. Lawyer of the OP-2 registered deficiency in service as the OP-1 had dared to ignore the advocate’s notice dt.01/12/2017 sent by the complainant. But under section 13 (3) of the C.P. Act, 1986 natural justice is due to the complainant.
Hence, it is
O R D E R E D
- The complainant is directed to pay the bill for post paid service up to December 1, 2017 for which OP-2 will prepare a bill with effect from 25/09/2017 to 01/12/2017 within 7 days from the date of this order. The complainant is also directed to pay the amount within 3 days from the date of receiving the new bill.
- The OP-2 is directed to transfer the postpaid service of the complainant to prepaid service within 10 days from the date of payment of dues made by the complainant.
The case is disposed of without imposing any litigation cost.
Let a plain copy of this order be furnished to the parties forthwith free of cost.
