MADRAS TELEPHONES Vs. MADRAS PROVINCIAL CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Revision Petition against the Order 17th May, 1991 of the State Commission, Tamil Nadu. There was a strike in Madras Telephones for nearly a month in October/November, 1990. The District Forum had ordered that the Petitioner here (Opposite Party before the District Forum) would give rental rebate to the Telephone subscribers for 20 days during the strike bimonthly period amounting to Rs. 110/- in subsequent bill and should carry over 100 out of 150 free calls of the strike affected period to the next billing period.

(2.) The appeal filed by the present petitioner before the State Commission against the order of the District Forum was directed against the carrying over of the free calls to the subsequent billing period. The State Commission came to the conclusion that there is no rationale in inter-linking the bimonthly rent with the number of calls and, therefore, there was no nexus between the bimonthly rent and the number of free calls and that, therefore, there was no justification for carrying over the unavailed free calls to the subseqeunt period. The Commission came to the conclusion that where a telephone is out of order and the subscriber is unable to utilise free calls in a particular billing period on account of disruption in the phone service, it is just and equitable to allow him to carry over the unavailed free calls to the subsquent billing period. However, the StateCommission came to the conclusion in this particular case that the telephone subscribers were entitled to carry over 50 calls as against 100 allowed in District Forum's order due to disruption of the telephone services to the subsequent billing period.

(3.) There is no doubt, whatsoever, that the concession of free calls can be availed only if rental is chargeable for a particular period : if there is no rent charged for a particular period, there is no entitlement of subscribers to make free calls in the same period. In other words, the petitioner would be entitled to make a proportionate reduction in the number of free calls a subscriber is entitled to make during the period he foregoes rental for the telephone. Therefore, un availed of free calls during the period the telephone service remained disrupted due to strike cannot be carried over by a subscriber.