The court held that the Department has a duty to properly investigate complaints of excess billing and to give the subscriber an opportunity to be heard before disconnecting the subscriber's telephone.

Dr. B.P. SARAF, J.:- This writ petition raises many issues of vital importance to a vast majority of the citizens and relate to the working of the telecom Department of the Government of India in the matter of complaints regarding excessive and inflated bills on account of local calls at S.T.D. stations, arbitrary rejection of the complaints, disconnection of the telephones, denial of the various safeguards granted to the subscribers under the rules and certain other allied issues.

2. The petitioner Sardar Santokh Singh is a permanent resident of Shillong. He has also a small business in Police Bazar. He has two telephone connections - one at his residence (No. 26711) and another at his shop (No. 23711). These two telephones he was having for more than last 20 years. He used to get the telephone bills on account of rental, call charges, trunk calls etc. in respect of the said telephone connections which were paid regularly. On one or two occasions when he received bills which were excessively high and inflated, he filed complaints with the authorities. The complaints were attended to and the bills were reduced by giving suitable rebate. As the petitioner has very limited use of the telephone, the total outgoing calls were also very nominal. This is evident from the following chart showing the amount due on account of trunk calls and number of chargeable local calls as per the telephone bills in respect of telephone No. 26711 for a number of periods preceding the periods during which the disputed bills were received.

Bill dated For the period ending Amount charged for Trunk Call Number of Local calls charged

21-7-82 5-7-82 Rs. 153.00 109

21-9-82 5-9-82 Rs. 253.00 100

21-11-82 5-11-82 Rs. 156.50 103

21-1-83 5-1-83 Rs. 213.00 169

21-3-83 5-3-83 Rs. 44.00 9

21-5-83 5-5-83 Rs. 204.00 Nil

21-7-83 5-7-83 Rs. 342.00 329

3. In the bills for the immediately succeeding periods, the number of local calls shot up abruptly to excessively high figures. The position will be clear from the following chart ;

Bill dated For the period ending Amount charged for Trunk Call Number of Local calls charged

21-9-83 5-9-83 Rs. 245.00 13879

21-11-83 5-11-83 Rs. 193.00 18819

21-1-84 5-1-84 Rs. 113.00 10019

The bill dated 21-9-83/21-10-83 was for the period 6-7-83 to 5-9-83 and this bill was for Rs. 2,009.50. The petitioner submitted a complaint against excessive billing in respect of the said bill and while it was pending consideration, he received another bill dated 21-11-83 for the next bi-monthly period amounting to Rs. 9,428.00. The petitioner was shocked to receive such an inflated bill and immediately on its receipt filed another complaint. This time he also submitted an application to the Divisional Engineer, Phones, Shillong requesting him to withdraw the STD facility itself. While his complaints were pending still another bill dated 21-1-84 was received by him for the next bill-monthly period this time showing the amount due as Rs. 4,968/-.

4. In this connection it may be pertinent to mention that earlier in 1982 also, the petitioner was once faced with a similar situation when a bill in respect of the same telephone was served on him showing local calls charged as 3579. It was bill for the period ending 5-7-82. The petitioner filed a complaint. The complaint, however, was attended to and the Accounts Officer on investigation of the complaint granted a rebate of 3000 calls out of 3579 calls charged in the bill and asked the petitioner to pay Rs. 231.60 which he paid. Things, thereafter, went on smoothly till October, 1983 when the petitioner got a highly inflated bill for the period from 6-7-83 to 5-9-83 followed by two further bills for still much higher figures. It is interesting to note that even after the petitioner on receipt of excessive bills applied for barring the STD facility in respect of the said telephone and the said facility was withdrawn on 9-1-84. On payment of necessary fee of Rs. 50/-, the bill for the period fro