Court No. - 40
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 33442 of 2009 Petitioner :- Zafar Hameed Khan Respondent :- State Of U.P. & Others Counsel for Petitioner :- S. F. A. Naqvi Counsel for Respondent :- C. S. C.,K.N.Misra
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J. Hon'ble Shashi Kant,J.
Heard Sri S.F.A. Naqvi, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri B.K. Singh Raghuvanshi, learned counsel appearing for the respondent B.S.N.L. This is a telephone billing dispute.
A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondent and in paragraph 10 and 14 of the same it has been stated that the bills that have been relied upon by the petitioner were due to some typographical mistake or by management by the petitioner to get duplicate bills issued as a result whereof there is a variation shown as against the actual consumption by the petitioner. It is also stated that the telephone was being used by the petitioner inspite of the fact that the connection was in the name of his father who had died.
It is also alleged that the amount which is sought to be recovered from the petitioner is the actual consumption amount and therefore no liberty can be taken by the petitioner on the strength of the bills that have been filed by him.
What we find is that whether the bills that were given to the petitioner were managed or were actual bills would be dependent upon the metering of the connection. There appears to have been no enquiry about this and to the contrary the counter affidavit states that there is some management on the part of the petitioner.
In the absence of any such evidence that the petitioner has managed the bills, this allegation in the counter affidavit therefore does not stand to reason.
We are therefore, of the opinion that it would be more appropriate that the matter is examined by the respondent no. 2 by calling for a correct report in this regard including a technical report with regard to the consumption and in case any clarification is wanted the same may be intimated to the petitioner thereafter. An order may be then passed in accordance to law.
Since we find that the demands have been raised without carrying out this procedure on the basis of mere suspicion on the part of the petitioner the impugned recovery notice dated 3rd August, 2008 Annexure 1 to the writ petition cannot be sustained. Accordingly, we quash the recovery notice dated 3rd August, 2008 with liberty to respondent no. 2 to proceed to pass appropriate orders in accordance with law and it shall be open to the petitioner to give his response in the matter by filing appropriate representation within three months' from the date of production of a certified copy of this order.
The writ petition is accordingly allowed.
Order Date :- 28.5.2018 A. Verma