Bharti Tele Venture Ltd has been asked by a consumer forum here to pay Rs 10,000 compensation to a publishing firm for continuing to raise bills despite a request to disconnect internet services provided to it.
The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum observed that the telecom major had not acted "swiftly" when it received the request for disconnection of services.
Instead, Bharti Tele Venture withdrew money from the publishing firm's account towards three bills for the period after request to discontinue service was sent, the forum said.
"We find that complainant (publishing firm) requested for disconnection of internet services with effect from September 25, 2005. The opposite party (Bharti Tele Venture) instead of complying with the request continued raising bills for internet services for the period from September 26, 2005 and withdrew money from the current account of the complainant...
"Thus, we find opposite party failed to act swiftly on the request of the complainant sent via e-mail dated September 22, 2005 followed by letter... This conduct of opposite party is tantamount to deficiency in service, for which they are liable to compensate the complainant," a bench presided by Narendra Kumar said.
The forum's order came on the plea of Delhi-based Vidhiman Publishers, which had said in its complaint that it had requested the telecom major to disconnect the internet services provided to it from September 25, 2005 as they were allegedly unsatisfactory.
Bharti Tele Venture instead of disconnecting services, raised bills for the period from September 26, 2005 till December 2005 and also withdrew money from its account, the publishing firm said.
The telecom firm in its defence had said the money was collected towards billing cycles much prior to the date of receipt of revocation letter sent by the publishing firm.
The forum, however, said that if the telecom firm had "swiftly" acceded to the request for discontinuing services, there would not have been any reason for it to withdraw any money.
