"Child need not pay father’s phone bills"

MUMBAI, January 30: Preeti C Thosani fought back when the telephone department sought to make her pay for her father’s faults. Disposing of her plea, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission ordered early this month that the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. cannot disconnect her phone connection for non-payment of arrears by her father.

Thosani was allotted a telephone under the Own Your Telephone category on January 15, 1991. On March 20, 1995, the MTNL threatened to disconnect the phone due to arrears of about Rs 18,000 piled up by her father. His telephone however was snapped in 1985 for non-payment of bills. In spite of Thosani’s requests, the MTNL disconnected her telephone on April 17, 1995. “It was arbitrary and illegal,” she said.

Thosani had won her case at the district consumer forum, Worli, against which MTNL appealed before the State Commission. MTNL’s advocate S I Shah appealed that the Indian Telegraph Act empowers it to disconnect other phones of the subscriber who is in arrearsof payment. Thosani’s advocate Jehangir B Gai said the rule also mentions this power can be exercised only in respect of the defaulter in whose name the telephone connection stands. This would not extend to the relations or others who have obtained the telephone under OYT.