The Hindu : New Delhi News : Reliance told to pay for service unreliability

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 04, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Reliance told to pay for service unreliability

Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI: For Banarsi Dass getting connected to the Internet was only a dream. Having opted for a wireless telephone from Reliance Infocomm for Rs. 4,000 that could run two parallel connections and log on to the Internet, Mr. Dass thought that he would always be connected. Little did he realise it was only the beginning of his troubles.

Tired of not being able to use his "parallel" connection for himself and his non-government organisation (NGO), Mr. Dass was forced to go to consumer court. The district consumer disputes redress forum has now held Reliance Infocomm guilty of deficiency for not providing the services promised to the customers in its advertisements. It has further directed the company to refund Rs. 4,000 -- the amount paid by him to get the telephone installed. The company was also required to pay Rs. 2,000 towards mental harassment and Rs. 1,000 towards cost of litigation.

In his case before the court, Mr. Dass submitted that the telephone stopped functioning totally when he used the Internet. Despite a number of complaints, nothing was done. Mr. Dass also claimed someone came to repair the telephone and told him that the company could not provide all the services especially the Internet one, as there was no "tower''.

The representative promised that the tower would be installed in the nearby area soon. But unfortunately for Mr. Dass, he never got connected.

For its part, Reliance Infocomm claimed that Mr. Dass's allegations have no basis as the connection was working fine as his bills indicated that the telephone line was being used extensively. The company further referred to a `clause' that clearly states that the service quality, functionality, availability and/or reliability may be affected or company is entitled to limit, suspend, disconnect and/or interrupt it without any reason.

It also argued that the connection Mr. Dass subscribed to needed an antenna to be installed as per guidelines and that he was using the facility for commercial purposes, while he had applied for an individual use.

Going through all the evidence, a bench of the consumer disputes redressal forum presided over by V.K Sharma set aside the objection of the company alleging that Mr. Dass was using the telephone for commercial use, as he had stated in the documents that the extension of the telephone would be used to run his NGO.

The bench observed that Reliance Infocomm's defence that the extensive bills implies that the telephone was functioning well was not proof to establish that the connection was working well, as it could also mean that there were interruptions often.

Stating that once the company advertises its facilities through the media, it was considered that there was infrastructure to meet these requirements of the consumer, the bench held the company guilty of deficiency in services for not fulfilling its promises.

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