Ramesh Panchal and Ajay Tyagi had nothing in common until their paths crossed at the Mumbai Suburban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.
Last week, the consumer forum ordered a compensation of Rs30,000, inclusive of the cost of complaint, to be paid to each victim.
Though Panchal and Tyagi were victims of different service providers, both suffered the same fate due to poor services. While Panchal complained against the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) for leaving his landline out of service for five months. Tyagi had a similar grievance against Bharti Airtel Ltd for not activating a new SIM card acquired from the company after losing one.
The grounds of complaint for the duo also turned out to be similar. Both Panchal and Tyagi cited how they suffered professional setbacks in the absence of their phones.
While Panchal was dependent on his phone for his interior designing and carpentry business, Tyagi had to suffer dearly for not being able to remain in constant touch with his clients as an employee of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).
In 2009, Geeta Vimoria replied on behalf of MTNL OCB exchange, alleging that Panchal had lodged a false complaint since they had replaced his instrument. However, the forum observed that if Panchal's line was active, why would MTNL send him a cumulative rent in January 2008.
Even Airtel tried to blame Tyagi, claiming that his SIM card did not get activated since he did not follow the instructions for activation that were e-mailed to him. However, Tyagi attached a series of e-mail interactions with the customer care department about how his was unable to activate his SIM card despite following the e-mailed instructions.
Giving similar observations in both the cases, President J L Despande and member Deepa Bidnurkar observed that “considering their professional preoccupation, no one would spend so much time and effort in forging a complaint”.
