ORDER
P.D. Shenoy, Member
1. The short point to be considered in this case is whether the Telecom Department can charge more than Rs. 20 p.m. to subscriber who had availed the transfer call facility and the facility has been used regularly.
2. Shri Akhilesh Dixit who is the respondent in this case had availed the transfer call facility from the Dept. of Telecom on payment of Rs. 20 p.m. extra. He has been getting bills proportionate to the facilities used by him. The respondent filed a complaint before the District Forum, Gwalior alleging that he is paying Rs. 20 for the facility of call transfer. An amount of Rs. 5707 was deposited by the respondent against bills dated 8.10.1998, 5.2.1999 and 22.4.1999 whereas the petitioner was authorized to receive only Rs. 1156 as minimum charges against the above bills. In this way the respondent has been made to deposit Rs. 4551 in excess, which amount he has sought to get refunded with 18% interest till the date of payment. He also claimed damages to the tune of Rs. 10,000, etc.
3. The District Forum, Gwalior held that Telecom Dept. is authorized to receive only Rs. 20 charges for providing transfer facility on telephone. The District Forum directed the department to pay Rs. 600 to the respondent for the inconvenience caused to him.
4. Unhappy with the order of District Forum, the General Manager filed an appeal before the Madhya Pradesh State Commission which held that:
In such circumstances, the order of the District Forum that on providing transfer facility to the appellant, the phone call received from A phone of the respondent transferred to phone B cannot be considered as call made by the respondent to phone B.
5. Aggrieved by the order of the State Commission, the General Manager, Telecom Dept. has come up in revision before us. A document: “Service Description for Analogue Subscriber” was produced before us. In this document the column on charging reads as follows:
Charging will be on double basis as follows:
(i) The caller is charged for a normal call from his number to the called subs.
(ii) The called subscriber (one who has forwarded the call) is charged for the forwarded part of the call. When the call forwarding becomes effective and the call is answered AMA shall be generated for B subscriber (one who forwards
the call) as well as bulk metering as if call is originated from B subscriber, AMA shall also give indication of call forwarding.
(iii) It should be possible to charge the subscriber on activation, deactivation and modification.
Hence, it is clear that Rs. 20 is charged only for providing the telephone with the forwarding facility. However, every time the call is forwarded/transferred then the meter runs as per the procedure laid down in the manual quoted above. Hence, the subscriber cannot find fault with such a procedure because the telephone calls moves not just from A to B but also from B to C. Hence, the subscriber B has to pay an additional amount for the transfer of the call from B to C
6. Accordingly the Revision Petition is allowed and the order of State Commission is set aside and complaint dismissed. Parties to bear to their own costs.