N V SEEMA Vs. DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner has filed the above writ petition praying to issue a writ of declaration declaring the disconnection of the petitioners telephone No.4866622 as arbitrary and illegal and consequently direct the respondents to reconnect the Telephone No.4866622 immediately in so far as the petitioner is concerned.

(2.) Today, when the above writ petition was taken up for consideration in the presence of the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Additional Central Government Standing Counsel, having regard to the materials placed on record and upon hearing the learned counsel for both, what could be gathered is that the petitioner is not in arrears of any Telephone Bills till date; that her husband is a subscriber to Telephone No.4837227 and he was also prompt in payment of telephone bills, but all of a sudden he received a bill dated 1.9.1997 for a sum of Rs.43,943/-, which was exorbitant, unimaginable and disproportionate in comparing the use of telephone; that in spite of complaining about the same to the respondents, the subsequent bills dated 1.11.1997 for a sum of Rs.34,197/- and 1.9.1998 for a sum of Rs.17,828/- also came which were also exorbitant and therefore, he disputed the same and made complaints to the respondents; that the respondents without investigating the same disconnected the telephone of the petitioners husband in the month of October 1997 on the ground of non-payment of the above bills; that the petitioners husband filed a writ petition before this Court in W.P.No.11576 of 2002 and this Court by order dated 15.4.2002 directed the respondents to refer the dispute under Section 7(B) of the Indian Telegraphs Act within twelve weeks from the date of communication of the order.

(3.) It could be further gathered that thereafter, the respondents issued a letter dated 1.5.2002 to the petitioner thereby demanding her to pay the disputed bills relating to her husbands telephone No.4837227; that though the petitioner sent a reply to the respondents the third respondent without considering the petitioners reply, disconnected the petitioners telephone No.4866622 for the alleged non-payment of disputed telephone bills of her husband. In such circumstances, the petitioner has come forward to file the above writ petition praying for the relief extracted supra.