SANTOSH GAUR Vs. CHIEF GENERAL MANAGER TELE-COMMUNICATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard the parties. Smt. Santosh Gaur, the complainant-appellant, had applied on 23.6.1986 to the respondents to sanction/provide a telephone to her at Jaipur. She had duly paid a sum of Rs.1,000/- to the respondents for the purpose. She was registered under General Category and allotted Registration No. JP/14184. However, subsequently her husband was transferred to Pune in Maharashtra, she, therefore, requested the respondents to transfer her registration to Pune for providing a telephone to her there. Since her prayer was not acceded to she approached the District Forum for appropriate relief. But the District Forum, Jaipur dismissed her Complaint No.284 of 1994 vide impugned order dated 29.9.1997 on the grounds that she did not become a "consumer, of the services of the respondent by merely getting herself registered as a prospective user of a telephone and that the feasibility report regarding the position of telephones in the Telephone Exchange at Pune was also not filed. The aggrieved complainant is now before us through this appeal.

(2.) At the very outset we enquired of Mr. S. L. Gaur, the husband, authorised repre-sentative of the appellant, as to whether he had obtained a telephone at Pune by now and whether he was still interested in transfer of appellant's registration at Jaipur to this Pune Exchange. Sri Gaur was fair enough to state that he was no longer interested in getting the registration transferred to Pune after about 17 years of the registration of appellant's application with the respondents at Jaipur. He, however, prayed for refund of the deposited amount with interest and compensation for mental agony and cost of litigation. The prayer made, is quite reasonable and justified in the facts and circumstances of the case and could not be seriously opposed to by the respondents.

(3.) In view of the above we do not think it necessary to comment upon the merits of the grounds for dismissal of appellant's complaint by the District Forum. Suffice it to say that since Rs.1,000/- was charged by the respondent as consideration for rendering the services to the appellant by providing a telephone to her, the appellant had acquired the character and status of "complainant" and "consumer" within the meaning of the terms defined in the C. P. Act, 1986. We find support for such view from the Punjab Commission's decision in the case of M/s. Mela Ram Saran V/s. General Manager, Telecom,1993 1 CPR 685.