ORDER

Mr. Ramesh Bawri, Member -This entire batch of appeals arises from orders passed by the learned District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forums of East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi Districts of Meghalaya, hereinafter referred to as the learned District Fora or Forums in respect of Complaints filed by various Consumers against Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited hereinafter referred to as BSNL. In all the related orders some relief or the other has been granted by the learned District Fora and, besides that, the learned Fora have turned down BSNL's plea that the Consumer Fora have jurisdiction over complaints or disputes relating to the telecom or telegraph services provided by them. Hence the Appeals.

2. As the jurisdiction of the Consumer Fora is a common ground of appeal and goes to the root of the matter, it was our considered view that the maintainability of the complaints be first decided as a preliminary issue as no purpose would be served by going into the merits of each appeal in case it was ultimately decided that Consumer Fora did indeed have no jurisdiction over such cases. Hence, with the consent of the respective Counsel of the Appellants as well as all the Respondents, we have taken up this batch of Appeals for hearing on the common preliminary issue as to whether or not the complaints filed by the Complainants in respect of telecom or telegraph services availed by them from BSNL, the Appellants, were maintainable before the respective learned District Forums.

3. Heard Mr. S.C. Shyam, learned Senior Counsel for BSNL, the Appellants, assisted by Mr. B. Deb, Advocate. Also heard Mr. Sandeep Jindal, learned Counsel for the Respondent in F.A. No. 5 of 2006 who has led the battery of Advocates for the Respondents and also the respective Counsel of the Respondents in the other Appeals, all of whom have adopted and endorsed the arguments made by Mr. S. Jindal.

4. Mr. S.C. Shyam has vehemently argued that the respective District Fora lacked inherent jurisdiction to entertain the complaints in question in the manner that they did, since the matters agitated in the said complaints did not fall within the ambit of consumer disputes under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, hereinafter referred to as the C.P. Act and as such the impugned orders are wholly without jurisdiction, bad in law and liable to be set aside and quashed. Mr. S.C. Shyam has placed complete reliance on the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in General Manager, Telecom v. M. Krishnan and Anr., reported in AIR 2010 SC 90, which we shall hereinafter refer to as the Krishnan case judgment and, according to him, this judgment alone is enough to prove his point without any further ado. He also brings to our notice that following this judgment several Hon'ble State Commissions of our country including those of the States of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have held that Consumer Fora are barred from entertaining complaints relating to telecom services and that the only course open to consumers is to seek arbitration of their disputes under the provisions of Section 7B of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 hereinafter referred to as the Telegraph Act. Mr. S.C. Shyam therefore prays that we too should follow suit.

5. On the other hand, Shri Sandeep Jindal, while fairly conceding that several Hon'ble State Commissions of our country have indeed held that the Consumer Fora have no jurisdiction over disputes relating either to landline or cellular telephones, however points out that these decisions have been reached simply by relying upon the Krishnan case without delving into and discussing the factual situation of the cases and or noticing the distinctions and prays that we should not follow suit in a routine manner and ought to take an independent view. He further submits that when the applicability of the Krishnan case to t