SAJI GEEVARGHESE versus ACCOUNTS OFFICER (TELEPHONE REVENUE) & ORS.

Citation: [2008] 15 S.C.R. 1 · Decided: 30-09-2008 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: R.V. RAVEENDRAN · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

[2008) 15 S.C.R. 1 , 
.. SAJI. GEEVARGHESE 
A 
, •. 
' 
II. 
ACCOUNTS. OFFICER (TELEPHONE' REVENUE). & ORS. 
(Civil Appeal No. 5912 of 2008) · 
· 
· 
SEPTEMBER.30, 2008 
· · 
.. · .jR.V .. RAVEENDRAN AND LOKESHWAR SINGH 
. 
. . 
. . 
. . 
PANTA, JJ.) 
. 
B 
Telegraph Act, 1978; s.7B: 
.. 
Excess billing -. Telephone sub~criber making a c 
.. complaint alleging. excess metering/misuse of his telephone 
line but rpade payment Receipt of another bill by subscriber 
· also showing excess.- billing - Complaints in writing -
·Department informing the subscriber to settle.the,biil pending 
• enquiry-(Yet another bill showing excess billing received by 0 
subscriber-· Department raising demand for payment of bills 
.- Challenged by subscriber -
High Court directing 
·Department to refer the dispute to statutory arbitration in terms 
ofprovision u/s.7 of the Act;- Arbitrator made an award 
allowing rebate in one of the disputed bills dated 11.9.1995 E 
: but upheld other bills - Challenge to - Dismissed by Single 
·Judge: of. the High Court holding that findings of Arbitrator,. a 
quasi-judicial authority, cannot be disturbed by' the High 
Court in exercise of power of judicial review under Article 226 
: of the Constitution - Affirmed by Division Bench of the· High 
-Court- Correctness of,... ·Held: In terms ofs.7B of the Act, 
F 
·award made by tlje Arbitrator is final and conclusive - Only 
remedy available to the party aggrieved by the award is to 
·seek judicial review by filing a writ petition -Award suffers from 
non-applicaticm of mind by the Arbitrator leading to apparent 
erroroffacts and law-Bill dated 11.9.1995 is a consolidated G 
bt11 covering earlier bills dated 11. 7.1995, 11~5.1995 and 
11.3.1995,. which stood cancelled - Arbitrator erred in 
· upholdil)g the bill dated 11.7.1995 without noticing that the 
same was' already included in the bill dated 11.9.1995 -
. 
. 
1 
H 
' 
\ 
2 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[2008] 15 S.C.R. 
A Arbitrator ought to have considered the question as to what 
relief should have been given to the subscriber when errors 
in billing due to lack of monitoring and inspection of the 
department noticed - Had the spurts in· calls been detected 
Jn time, verification/inspection/monitoring mechanism could 
B have been activated and real reasons for spurts would have 
been known and the subscriber would not have lost his 
)-
valuable right to complaining against excessive billing -
Though the Arbitrator recorded a finding that there was no 
monitoring done by the department in spite of noticing spurts 
c which led to defective billing but it gave only a marginal 
rebate to subscriber - These visible errors on the face of the 
award have totally been ignored by the High Court by wrongly 
applying this principle that the Court can not sit over Arbitral 
award - In such a situation, justice can be done by restricting 
0 
the billing in regard to the bills against which written complaint 
-+ 
was filed promptly, to the average of the bills for one year prior 
to the disputed period -
The department. directed to send 
revised bill accordingly - Constitu(ion of India, 1950 - Article 
226-Arbitrator-Award- Court's power to review. 
E 
Appellant, a telephone subscriber, received a bill 
dated 11.1.1995 showing excess billing. He had 
complained orally to the department but paid the bill. He 
received another bill dated 11.7.1995 also showing 
excess billing. He lodged a complaint with respondent 
F No.1 alleging excess metering and/or misu~e of the 
telephone line. Respondent No.1 informed that the matter 
has been enquired into and call~d upon him to settle the 
bill. In the meantime, he was served with yet another 
excess bill dated 11.9.1995. Appellant did not pay these 
G bills and requested for action on his complaint. However, 
the respondent issued a notice demanding payment of 
arrears. Appellant approached the High Court. The High 
Court directed the respondent to settle the dispute by 
arbitration. The department appointed an Arbitrator and 
H referred the bills in question for arbitration. The Arbitrator 
SAJI GEEVARGHESE v. ACCOUNTS OFFICER 
3 
.( 
(TELEPHONE REVENUE) & ORS . 
found that the appellant was eligible for rebate by giving 
A 
the benefit of doubt in respect of disputed bill dated 
11.9.1995 only, but upheld the other two disputed bills. 
Aggrieved, the appellant challenged the award. Single 
Judge of the High Court held that it was not possible to 
disturb the findings recorde

Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.