MADRAS PROVINCIAL CONSUMER ASSOCIATION Vs. DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this petition filed by Shri R.R. Dalavai in his capacity as Chairman of the Madras Provincial Consumer Association, the reliefs prayed for are that this Commission should pass orders fixing a reasonable rate of interest as payable by the Department of Telecommunications to persons who have availed of the facility of the O.Y.T. scheme (own your telephone scheme) from the date of the making of deposits by them, that an amount of Rs. 320/-, which is said to be the residue remaining after adjustments made out of the deposit during a period of 20 years should be directed to be paid in full at the end of the 20th year and that the existing stipulation for deduction of Rs. 400/- for every year or part of a year during which the telephone had been in use of the subscriber prior to his surrendering the telephone should be refixed on a fair basis and the ceiling fixed at Rs. 6,000/- should be struck down as arbitrary.

(2.) The O.Y.T. scheme offered by the Department of Telecommunications for enabling persons to get speedy allotments of telephones is a facility which a person may or may not opt to avail of on the basis of the exercise of his free will and choice. The information bulletin issued by the Department, a copy of which forms part of the record before us, clearly stipulates the manner in which advance deposits would be adjusted and the rate at which and the period for which alone interest would be payable on such deposits. A person deliberately entering into a contract for the allotment of a telephone under the O.Y.T. scheme on those conditions with open eyes cannot thereafter be heard to complain that any of those terms or conditions are not just or fair.

(3.) The following observations of the Supreme Court in the case of S. Narayana lyer v. The Union of India and Another in Civil Appeal No.325 (NCM) of 1970 are opposite in this context: