S. N. Aggarwal, President—This order will dispose of two appeals namely First Appeal No.1653 of 2007, M/s Bharti Airtel Limited & others v. Shri Narinder Kumar Jain, and First Appeal No.10 of 2008, M/s Bharti Airtel Limited v. Shri Randhir Sharma, as the questions of law and facts involved in both the appeals are identical. For the sake of convenience, facts are taken from First Appeal No.1653 of 2007 and the parties would be referred by their status in this appeal.

2. Narinder Kumar Jain, respondent is an Income Tax Advocate running his practice at Amritsar. He was holder of Pre-paid mobile connection No. 98150-72918 and was the customer of the appellants. He received a call from the Call Centre of the appellants from Mr. Gaurav who advised the respondent to have hello tune of “Dhan Dhan Teri Sikhi” free of cost for one year. However, the respondent declined to have it as he was a professional, and therefore, he did not need any hello tune. However, the appellants activated the said hello tune from their Mobile No. 678000/678 on 16.3.2007. The respondent took up the matter with the office of appellants at Hall Bazar, Amritsar and requested them to de-activate the hello tune. The respondent adopted the advised procedure to get the hello tune de-activated. It was de-activated but charges were debited to the account of the respondent.

3. It was further pleaded that on 20.3.2007 again the said hello tune was activated. The respondent again contacted the appellant’s office and sent necessary message on 20.3.2007, 21.3.2007 and 23.3.2007 but needful was not done. Again the appellants were contacted on 26.3.2007. He was again advised by the person to follow a particular procedure. The respondent again adopted the same procedure. It was deactivated but again he was charged for the message sent by him.

4. Again on 29.3.2007, hello tune was activated by the appellants from their mobile No. 678000. The respondent again took up the matter. He was advised to send message on DHT to 700 and UNF to No. 235. The respondent adopted the same procedure. It was de-activated. The respondent again received a message on 3.4.2007 while he was working in his office that the said hello tune has been again activated. On the same day, the respondent lodged a complaint with the appellant’s Call Centre at No. 121 by writing the words “I am at a loss to understand as to why your staff’s activating again & again (4th time) hello tune on my No. 9815072918 and it is my final request to delete it, otherwise law will take its own course”. In response to it, the following message was sent by the appellants from 121:

“We are in receipt of your query and shall revert with “the resolution within 24 hours”.

5. However, nobody attended to the complaint even for 72 hours.

6. The complainant received a message from 121 on 7.4.2007 “We are unable to understand the query sent by you, request you to resend your query, so that we can assist you better” along with the message “to delete your hello tune send DHT to 700 and charges 3/sms.” The respondent again lodged his complaint on 7.4.2007 at 121 mentioning “Hello tune has been activated by your staff and not on my request. Kindly delete it, why should I pay for your faults”, but till date hello tune has not been de-activated.

7. It was further pleaded, that the respondent even personally visited the local office of the appellants in Ranjit Avenue, Amritsar and contacted Mr. Gagandeep Singh Jandi, Manager Sales and the whole story was brought to his notice. The tension, harassment and inconvenience faced by the respondent was also explained to him. However, instead of redressing the grievance he flatly refused to do so. The hello tune was not removed from the mobile phone of the respondent. The respondent received a number of missed calls from his clients on which he faced the grievances of his clients. Hence the respondent filed a complaint in the learned District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Amritsar (in sh