Judgment:
Bhanwar Singh, President:
Oral:
1. Heard Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh, learned Counsel for the appellants of the above mentioned two appeals. None is present on behalf of the respondents. The respondents/complainants appeared as caveators but have not turned up today. Their Counsel Mr. A.K. Vaidya is also not available. The cause-list of date was displayed on the Internet through the Commissions website, still none has come forward on behalf of the respondents/complainants.
In the circumstances, we proceed to decide both the appeals on merit.
2. The District Consumer Forum by means of the impugned split judgments pronounced separately in complaint Nos. 135 of 2005 and 136 of 2005 have given rise to these two appeals. Both the above mentioned complaints were dismissed by the President of the District Forum, Bulandshahr in the light of this Commissions judgment in revision No. 174 of 2008. Sri Dalip Singh was the complainant of both the complaint cases and he filed the two complaints with the allegations that M/s. Star India Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. MSM Discovery Pvt. Ltd. had committed deficiency in service by revoking the supply of network through cable. It was pleaded on behalf of the above named two appellants that the decoder signals being provided to the complainant had been discontinued in accordance with the terms and conditions of the agreement. Further, it was stated that Sri Dalip Singh being the licensee of the two service providers was not a consumer as he himself was providing service of cable network to the television owners. Whereas the President of the District Consumer Forum accepted the plea of the appellants and dismissed both the complaints of Sri Dalip Singh, the two members partly allowed the complaints with a direction to the appellants to continue the service of the network until further orders. In other words, the members of the District Consumer Forum restrained M/s. Star India Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. MSM Discovery Pvt. Ltd. from snapping off the decoder signals to the complainant. It is surprising to note that the two members did not bother to see the reasonings of the judgment of the President of the District Forum nor they had disclosed any single reason to distinguish the judgment of this Commission dated 17.3.2009 pronounced in revision No. 174 of 2008. The two members simply baked upon the provisions of Section 3 of the Consumer Protection Act and arrived at a conclusion that the complainant was at liberty to seek redressal of his grievance either by knocking at the door of the District Forum or approaching the TRAI. However, the two members ignored the core issue that the District Consumer Forum was not competent to take cognizance of the two complaints on account of the fact that there was no consumer dispute enshrined in his complaints. As said above, the Commission had arrived at a conclusion in the revision referred to above that the dispute between a cable operator and signal provider is not a consumer dispute for the simple reason that the former is the licensed distributor of the latter. Also, it may be observed that both the signal provider and the cable operator providing Network in the urban or rural areas are service providers and as such neither of them is a consumer. Whereas the signal provider extends the facility of providing signals to the local cable operator, the latter also through the network provides service to the individual television owners. The observations of this Commission in revision No. 174 of 2008 may be reproduced as below:
âMoreover the dispute subsisting between the two parties i.e. the complainant and Star India Private Limited is not between a âservice provider and âconsumer rather it is between the two service providers. The revisionists being the distributors of Star India Private Limited are also the service providers. Since none of the three parties is a âconsumer, the dispute subsisting amongst them is not a consumer dispute, therefore, the question of there being a deficiency in providing service does not arise at all. It may be mentioned that the Star India Private Limited are the proprietors of the cable network and the complainant Sri Ashish Yadav is the cable operator of Prime Cable Network, who had under a contract, taken rights to extend the T.V. channels through the cable service to the consumers of the society at large and exhibit programmes on various channels. The revisionists are, in between the two, working as distributors on behalf of Star India Private Limited and collecting the stipulated dues from the cable operators. If any dispute arises amongst the three service providers, it would be cognizable by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal under Section 14 of the TRAI Act, 1977. Cognizance of such a dispute is expressly barred by Sections 15 and 27 of the TRAI Act.â
3. On the face of the conclusion drawn by this Commission it is difficult for us to uphold the findings and judgments of the two members. The members have in fact not applied their mind to the above judgments, its findings and conclusions. We can only express our dismay that despite the fact that the President referred to our judgment, the members went astray and recorded a different finding totally devoid of substance.
Our view-point also finds valuable assurance from the judgment of the National Commission in Ashish Yadav v. Gaurav Prasad and Ors., III (2009) CPJ 85 (NC).
4. Following our earlier decision in revision No. 174 of 2008, we hold that the judgments dated 11.2.2010 of the two members passed in complaint Nos. 135 and 136 of 2005 are contrary to law and our verdict and, thus, deserve to be set aside.
5. Accordingly, both the appeals are allowed and the impugned judgments of the two members are set aside. Both the complaints of Sri Dalip Singh stand dismissed with costs which we quantify to be at Rs. 10,000.00.
6. The money deposited by the appellants with this Commission as well as with the District Consumer Forum shall be refunded to them.
7. The original judgment shall be placed on the record of appeal No. 421 of 2010 with its copy to be laid on the record of other appeal No. 422 of 2010.
Appeals allowed.