The gist of the complaint as averred by the complainant is that he being a legal practitioner and member of Bar Association, Barasat held a post-paid connection of Airtel and faced problems from 31.01.2019 for next 3 days for interruption in services with respect to his mobile. Prior to that on 23.01.2019 the complainant got message from the service provider that the rental plan would no longer be available from 05.03.2019 unless the plan is updated from Rs. 99 to Rs. 199. The complainant claimed visiting the store of the Service provider and came to know about deactivation of his connection. Complainant wrote a mail to the service provider on 31.01.2019 to restore the functioning and visited the store on 02.02.2019 along with documents to show bona-fide and the service provider issued a fresh SIM Card for activation within next 4 hours. But as per the complainant, the said SIM Card did not get activated. On 03.02.2019, the complainant was assured by the service provider about normal functioning of the mobile connection which did not work out. As a result, the complainant re-visited the store when he was re-issued with another SIM Card with a promise that it would be activated within next 4 hours, which did not. The complainant visited the store again on 04.02.2019 when another SIM card was again issued afresh, which got activated on same day i.e. 04.02.2019 at 15:30 hours, and admittedly operational till present day.

From the complaint petition, it appears that there were interruptions in getting services from 31.01.2019 to 03.02.2019 when he dealt with consecutive replacements of SIM cards, for which the complainant claimed having been suffered from monetary loss while discharging professional duties, apart from agony and litigation cost.

The OPs contested the dispute in their written version and evidences claiming that the alleged disconnection due to stopping by Airtel is a mere presumption of complainant which actually was due to the physical damage of the existing SIM Card that the service provider found as functioning properly, which might have got damaged at the end of the complainant during hand set settings or inserting SIM cards etc. The service provider claimed having called the complainant at their store to demonstrate and help him in handling the settings of the hand set, which was exhibited through their reply letter dated 03.02.2019. The service provider also contested denying that the damaged SIM card as exhibited in the complaint petition- Anx H, Page 15 was never issued by the OP company. The complainant further complained about non-functioning of the mobile, when he was supplied with fresh SIM Card, till the issue got completely resolved on 04.02.2019 and being an admitted position of the complainant. The OP cum service provider denied having disconnected the mobile connection at any point of time and attributed the reason of such problem due to possible physical damage of the SIM Card, being those SIM Cards under complainant’s possession althrough, post issuance.

From the claims and counter claims, it is evident that there is not much material in the allegation of complainant as because there is no cogent evidence provided in support of the allegations about any deliberate attempt of service provider not to extend services to the customer, when it is the admitted position of the complainant himself about getting regular guidance of the service provider and when he was issued with fresh SIM Card from time to time,  to obviate the scopes of any damage during inserting/placing/setting SIM card or otherwise. In summary, it can hence be safely concluded that, in the melee, the services were being continuously extended by the telecom company from time to time  without any loss of time at any stage and demonstrating adequate efforts for corrective actions towards difficulties arisen, while the handset and SIM card were remaining under the possession of the complainant.

Under the circumstances, the allegations as stated above could not get adequately established.

Hence the case be and the same is dismissed but without any cost.

Let a plain copy be given to the parties free of cost as per CPR.

Dictated and corrected by

[HON'BLE MR. Partha Kumar Basu]
MEMBER