Punjab

Ludhiana

CC/13/786

Sh.Harjot Singh - Complainant(s)

Versus

The fManager/Incharge Airtel Office - Opp.Party(s)

-

18 Feb 2015

ORDER

BEFORE THE DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, LUDHIANA.

 

                                                                 Complaint No: 786 of 24.10.2013

                                                                                                                   Date of Decision: 18.02.2015

                                                                                                                   

Harjot Singh Dhillon s/o Sh.Bhupinder Singh R/o Street no.2-A, Bachittar Nagar, Gill Road, Ludhiana.

……Complainant

Versus 

1. The Manager/Incharge Airtel Office, Ferozepur Road, Opp. Milk Plant, Ludhiana.

2. Sh.Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman-cum-CEO, Bharti Enterprises, South, Delhi.

3. M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd. Bharti Crescent, 1, Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj, Phase-II, New Delhi, through its Manager/Managing Director/Authorized Representative.

…..Opposite parties 

 

COMPLAINT UNDER SECTION 12 OF THE

CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT, 1986.

 

Quorum:     Sh.R.L.Ahuja, President

                   Sh.Sat Paul Garg, Member

                   Smt.Babita, Member

 

Present:       Sh.P.M.S.Dhaliwal, Advocate for complainant.

                   Sh.Deepak Kumar, Advocate for OPs.

 

 

                        ORDER

 

(SAT PAUL GARG, MEMBER)

 

1.               Present complaint under Section 12 of The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (herein-after in short to be referred as ‘Act’) has been filed by Sh.Harjot Singh Dhillon s/o Sh.Bhupinder Singh R/o Street no.2-A, Bachittar Nagar, Gill Road, Ludhiana (herein-after in short to be referred as ‘complainant’) against The Manager/Incharge Airtel Office, Ferozepur Road, Opp. Milk Plant, Ludhiana and others (herein-after in short to be referred as ‘OPs’)- directing them to activate the incoming and outgoing calls of the mobile number immediately. Further Ops be directed to pay Rs.10.00 lacs as compensation alongwith interest @ 18% p.a. to the complainant.

2.                Brief facts of the complaint are that the complainant is the subscriber of Mobile connection no.96530-00099 of the company for four years. Since the said connection is a post-paid one and complainant had been paying the bills as per his consumption. On 28.8.13 complainant has mistakenly dialed one number 98000-000001, but due to disturbance in conversation, the call was disconnected. Thereafter complainant again made a call on the said number and when he came to know that dialed number is wrong and then the immediately disconnected the same. Surprisingly, after few days, the mobile connection no.96530-00099 of complainant was deactivated by the OPs without assigning any reason to the complainant. Thereafter complainant contacted OPs for the query of deactivation of his number, but OPs did not activate the said number with the pretext that said number, which was mistakenly dialed by the complainant is registered in N.D.N.C. (National Donot Call Regsiter). Complainant also sent so many e-mails to OPs with his clarification and with the request to activate the mobile connection of the complainant, but all in vain. Complainant also served legal notice to the OPs through his counsel. The said notice was received by the OPs, but neither any reply was given by the Ops nor they activate the outgoing service. Complainant also met to the Ops and requested for the said activation of outgoing calls, but the OPs delayed the matter on one pretext or the other. Claiming the above act as deficiency in service on the part of the OPs, the complainant has filed this complaint.

3.                On notice of the complaint, OPs appeared through their counsel and filed written statement taking preliminary objections that complaint is not maintainable; no cause of action accrued in favour of the complainant; the complainant has suppressed various facts from this Forum and has not approached this Forum with clean hands; The complaint is false, frivolous, vexatious and vague in nature. Further stated that as order passed by Hon’ble Supreme Court tendency of the litigants to indulge in speculative and vexatious litigation should be curbed; Forum had no jurisdiction to try and determine the present complaint; Further stated that Bharti Airtel Ltd. is a company incorporated under the companies act and is providing mobile connectivity to the prospective subscribers under license from the Ministry of Telecommunications, Govt. Of India under Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has also held that all services relating to telephone are subject to Telegraph Rules. That the OPs are also an authority as envisaged under the Telegraph Act. The license granted to the Ops company also states that the OPs shall be governed by the India Telegraph Act, 1885. India Wireless Telegraph Act, 1833 and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. The India Telegraph Act is applicable to the answering OPs, as per the license issued to the OPs u/s 4 of the said act. On merits, admitting the contents of para no.1 matter of record and denying the contents of para no.2 to 5 being wrong submitted that the complainant was subscriber of Mobile no.96530-00099. Further submitted that the number for personal use, the number had to be disconnected for violations of National Do Not Call (NDNC), now also called as National Customer Preference Register (NCPR), under TRAI’s Telecommunication Commercial Communication Consumer Preference Regulations, 2010. That any subscriber of any telecommunication service provider is given an option to get himself registered under National Do not Call (NDNC) category, wherein it is a facility that a person registered under NDNC will not receive any call or SMS from any registered telemarketer. There was a complaint had called on a number, which was registered under National Do Not Call (NDNC) category, and the complainant had concocted a false story that by mistake he had called and called the second time as there was problem in talking the first time. On receival of the complaint, it was noticed that the number of the applicant was not registered as a telemarketer and as such was a violation of the regulations laid in this behalf. It is submitted that any call/SMS if made, where in the number of caller/sender is cited is considered as violation under the said regulations. That the complainant was made aware of the same and he had been exchanging mails on the same. That as per Unsolicited Commercial Communication Regulations, the number was permanently barred. It is further submitted that number is not only disconnected, but is liable to be black listed, so that there is no further violation of norms by such number. That all the UCC guidelines are available. That having premium number will in no way affect the status of violation. The called number was barred initially as it was also in knowledge of the complainant that the he had called on a NDNC registered number as a telemarketer. Further denying the contents of all other paras, OPs prayed for the dismissal of the complaint.

4.                It may also be added that during the pendency of the complaint an application for dismissal of the complaint on behalf of OPs. The said application was dismissed on 11.09.14, after receiving the reply to the application from the complainant.

5.                Ld. counsel for complainant has adduced the evidence by way of duly sworn affidavit of complainant Sh.Harjot Singh, Ex.CA, wherein, the same facts have been reiterated as narrated in the complaint and also attached documents Ex.C1 to Ex.C7. Ld. counsel for Ops has adduced the evidence by way of duly sworn affidavit of Manu Sood, Assistant Manager Legal and Regulatory, Bharti Airtel Ltd. Plot no.21, Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park Chandigarh Ex.RA, wherein, the same facts have been reiterated, as narrated in the written statement and also attached documents Ex.R1 to Ex.R3.

6.                Case was fixed for arguments. Ld. counsel for complainant argued that complainant is a subscriber of premium number and paid handsome amount to get subscribe the same. On 28.8.13 complainant has mistakenly dialed one number 98000-000001, when he came to know that dialed number is wrong and then he immediately disconnected the same. Surprisingly, after few days, the mobile connection no.96530-00099 of complainant was deactivated by the OPs without assigning any reason to the complainant. Thereafter complainant contacted OPs for the query of deactivation of his number, but OPs did not activate the said number with the pretext that said number, which was mistakenly dialed by the complainant is registered in N.D.N.C. (National Donot Call Register). Complainant also sent so many e-mails to OPs with his clarification and requested many times to the OPs and also sent legal notice with a request to activate the mobile connection of the complainant, but with no result.

7.                Refuting the allegations leveled by the complainant, Ld. counsel for the OPs filed written arguments, wherein again reiterating the facts of the written statement submitted that the complainant has suppressed various facts from this Forum and has not approached this Forum with clean hands. The complainant is false, frivolous, vexatious and vague in nature and has been filed only to illegally harass the OPs. Further submitted that it would not be out of place to highlight the observations of Hon’ble Apex Court, wherein, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has deprecated that the tendency of litigations to indulge in speculative and vexatious litigation which should be curbed. In view of the aforesaid, it is respectfully submitted that as the complainant has come forward with unclean hands and prayed for the dismissal of the complaint. Moreover the complainant had resorted to violation of NDNC (National Do Not Call) as detailed earlier.

8.                We have gone through the pleadings of the complainant and written arguments submitted on behalf of Ops as well as defence taken by the Ops and have also perused the entire record placed on file.

9.                It is evident that the complainant is subscriber of mobile no.9653000099 and said number of the complainant was disconnected for violations of National Do not Call (NDNC) now also called as National Consumer Preference Register (NCPR) under TRAI’s Telecommunication Consumer Preference Regulations, 2010, as there was a complaint had called on a number, which was registered under National Do not Call (NDNC) Category. On the other hand, the averments made by the complainant is not tenable that he mistakenly dialed one number 98000-00001, but due to disturbance in conversation, the call was disconnected. Thereafter the complainant again made a call on the said number and when he came to know that dialed number is wrong, then he immediately disconnected the same. The said number got dialed by the complainant was not an ordinary number but was registered under National Do Not Call Register and now called as National Consumer Preference Register (NCPR). Thus, complainant violated the TRAI regulation, rather he used his number as telemarketer. It was submitted that any call/SMS if made, where in the number of caller/sender is cited is considered as violation under the said regulations. That the complainant was made aware of the same and he had been exchanging mails on the same. That as per Unsolicited Commercial Communication Regulations, the number was permanently barred. It was further submitted that number is not only disconnected, but is liable to be black listed, so that there is no further violation of norms by such number. That all the UCC guidelines are available. That having premium number will in no way affect the status of violation. The called number was barred initially as it was also in knowledge of the complainant. Hence the present complaint is not maintainable.

10.              Sequel to the above discussion, the present complaint is hereby dismissed being devoid of any merits with no order to cost. Copy of the order be supplied to the parties, free of costs. File be consigned to record room.

 

                   (Babita)                          (S.P.Garg)                      (R.L.Ahuja)

                   Member                           Member                         President

Announced in Open Forum.

Dated:18.02.2015 

Hardeep Singh