MADHAV VINAYAK RAJWADE Vs. MAHANAGAR TELEPHONE NIGAM LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is a retired civil servant. He joined Government service in 1942. He worked with the Government of Maharashtra till 1974. Thereafter, the petitioner worked with the United nations from May, 1974 upto March 1980. He returned to India in April, 1980 and thereafter he is residing at Bombay at 5, Lalit, Wodehouse Road, Bombay-400039. The family of the petitioner consists of himself, his wife, his daughter, son-in-law and niece. No other person resides at the said premises. The petitioner has a telephone at the said premises. Originally, the number of the telephone was 241605. It is now changed to 2021615. According to the petitioner, apart from his four family members no other person uses the said telephone.

(2.) AT all times material to this petition, the telephone had an S. T. D. facility. After the return of the petitioner to India, the telephone calls metered at the said telephone for the bi-monthly period for which the telephone bills are issued by the respondents, did not exceed 951 calls for any of the bi-monthly periods during the period 1. 7. 1981 to 14. 6. 1982. For the bi-monthly period of 14. 6. 1982 to 14. 8. 1982, the telephone calls which were metered amounted to 1065. Thereafter, for the next three bi-monthly periods, lesser number of calls were metered.

(3.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, in his telephone bill dated 1. 5. 1993 which pertains to the bi-monthly period of 14. 2. 1983 to 14. 4. 1983, there was a spurt in the telephone calls metered. The number of telephone calls recorded for this period was 1525. He, however, did not lodge any complaint because in the next bi-monthly period, the metered calls were again reduced to 620. Since then, for the bi-monthly period of 14. 6. 1983 to 14. 8. 1983 there was again an increase in the calls to 1241. For the next two bi-monthly periods, however, the calls metered were again reduced to 557 and 393.