BABU RAM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution Balu Ram has prayed that the two telephone connections installed in his business premises disconnected by the respondents may be directed to be restored with liberty to the respondents to bill him at shorter intervals of time to ensure payments of the calls made by him from these telephone connections. Respondents to the petition are the Union .of India, General Manager, Telephones, Divi- sional Engineer, Telephones, Delhi Gate Telephone Exchange respondents 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

(2.) The petitioner is carrying on share business with his office at 44-A, Coronation Hotel, Fatehpuri, Delhi, with the assistance of telephones. In 1966, he applied for a telephone connection under the 'own your telephone' scheme of the respondents. This connection was granted to him in December, 1966 and telephone No. 263578 here after referred to as the 'first telephone' was installed at his office. Due to business needs, he applied for a second connection and on March 9, 1969, under the same 'own your telephone' scheme which was also sanctioned and another telephone No. 265177 (hereafter referred as the "second telephone') was installed in the same office. The second connection commenced working from May 3, 1969. According to the petitioner he was never in arrears in respect of the trunk-calls bills or the local call bills of the first telephone which averaged to about Rs. 500.00 per quarter. In regard to the second telephone, he says, he received a bill for Rs. 1.50 only for the period from May 3, 1969 to May 10, 1969 which was duly paid. No bill or bills for the second telephone were received thereafter. His case in the petition is that a particular official of the telephone Department who came to know that the petitioner's business depended on the telephones approached him with a view to extort money but when he did not oblige him, this official with the help of some line-man had the lines of the petitioner's telephone connections joined to some other connections with the result that the petitioner's telephones recorded a very large number of calls which in fact were never made from these telephones. A report was, thereafter, made by the said official to the Divisional Engineer (Telephones) that the two connections of the petitioner were making heavy calls and immediate action was called for. On May 24, 1969, the petitioner, in consequence, received two demand notices in triplicate requiring him to deposit Rs. 27,500.00 in respect of the first telephone and Rs. 20,000.00 in respect of the second telephone. The deposits were required to be made within three days of the issue of the demand notes failing which the connections were to be disconnected. The petitioner, thereupon, approached the respondents to explain the situation but he was not allowed an interview. The two telephones were thus disconnected for failure of the petitioner to make the deposits. Under these circumstances, he has filed the present writ petition with the relief set out above contending that this action of the respondents was mala-fide and had in law.

(3.) After the petition had been admitted, on the application of the petitioner, by order dated June 16, 1969, one of the two connections, that is, the first telephone was directed to be re-connected subject to final decision of the writ petition and also subject to the petitioner giving a security to the extent of Rs. 2,000/. The' petitioner cornplied with this order and the first telephone was, therefore, restored.