GENERAL MANAGER MADRAS TELEPHONES Vs. R KANNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) -This is a Revision Petition against the order of 14th May, 1993 of the State Commission of Tamil Nadu. The order is a common order in appeal Petition No. 579 of 1992: R. Kannan v. The General Manager & Ors. and Appeal Petition No. 640 of 1992 : The General Manager, Madras Telephones, Madras & Ors. v. R. Kannan. By this order the State Commission held that the STD/ISD booth owners hired the services of the appellant telephone department for hiring which the here is paying Rs. 2,000/- per month. It, therefore, held that the respondent/complainant in this Revision Petition is a 'consumer' under the Consumer Protection Act. It, came to the finding that the respondent/complainant was entitled to a sum of Rs. 83,991.20/- as the amount of commission payable to him. However, it did not consider it justified to award any compensation to the respondent/complainant.

(2.) This is a case of grant of franchise by the revision petitioner Telecom Department to the respondent/complainant for running a STD/ PCO. From the paper book we are not able to discern precisely the conditions of contract for the grant of franchise. According to the revision petitioner Telecom Department and the agreement executed between the hirer of the PCO and the telephone department, the hirer of the STD/ PCO was to provide a part of his premises for installing the PCO with STD facilities; the respondent franchise holder undertook to perform the duties of a call office holder at the call office. The franchise holder was described in the agreement as hirer of the STD/PCO and was authorised to collect Rs. 1/- per unit from the callers on behalf of the franchiser. For rendering this service the franchise holder was entitled to a commission on a slab system basis ranging from 20 paise per call for the first 10,000 calls in a month to 5 paise per unit call for calls beyond 1,50,000/- in a month. The hirer of the STD/PCO was to make his own arrangement for installing a metering device.

(3.) In the order of the District Forum and the State Commission it has, however, been stated that the franchise holder has to provide an approved instrument which is coin operated or card operated, a coin collecting box instrument of OMNITEL type. It has further been stated in that order that the complainant did not use this type of equipment and therefore, according to the telecom department he was not entitled to a commission of 20 paise per unit per call. This fact is not incorporated in the agreement between the parties. However, we feel that the precise terms of agreement between the franchiser Telecom Department and the franchise holder PCO holder are not relevant.