S S SARNA Vs. GENERAL MANAGER TELEPHONE I

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short question but of great significance is involved in this appeal. The question is as to whether family member of a subscriber of a telephone can be a consumer, as defined under the Consumer Protection Act, entitled to move the FORA for the relief.

(2.) Telephone No.601689 was installed in the name of Harpreet Singh at his residential address House No.738, Sector 39, Ludhiana. His father S. S. Sarna is also resident of the same house and it is Mr. Sarna who lodged a complaint before the District Forum regarding faulty telephone aforesaid causing mental harassment and inconvenience. Since the complaint was finally disposed of by the District Forum on the technical ground that the complainant was not a consumer as defined, no opinion on merits of the complaint out of pleadings of the parties is being made. Suffice it to say that Mr. Sarna in the complaint pleaded that the telephone was installed at his residence in the name of his son Harpreet Singh and it is Mr. Sarna who has been a potential user of the same. Some evidence was also produced to indicate that Harpreet Singh had been posted at Bombay and felt inconvenience to contact his father and other family members on the telephone on account of defect in the telephone.

(3.) The District Forum did not accept the version of the complainant on the ground that proper affidavit in support of the allegations made in the complaint was not filed. We find that this approach is not correct. No specific form of affidavit is prescribed under the Consumer Protection Act or the rules framed thereunder. In the summary jurisdiction, the FOR A has been authorized to take on the record evidence on affidavit. A short affidavit, of course, was filed by the complainant stating therein that the contents of his complaint be read as part of affidavit and the same were correct and true. We find no infirmity in the affidavit as such. When the complainant has sworn to the correctness of the facts stated in the complaint which were to be part of the affidavit as such, the same could not be ignored. Even if the affidavit aforesaid is found to be defective, for proper adjudication of the cause, the complainant should have been given an opportunity to produce a detailed affidavit. To deny the relief, which is legitimate otherwise on the technical ground as stated above is not proper. The whole purpose of the Act would stand frustrated if on technical grounds, relief is declined by the FORA.