BSNL gets its dues
By Amlan Mohanty

One of the key areas of litigation for BSNL has been with regard to collection of unpaid bill amounts and just last week (January 10th, 2012) it received two separate orders in its favour for collection of large bill amounts from two of its customers. So if you ever wondered whether telecom operators go after customers who run up huge bills and leave them unpaid, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh heard two petitions at once, one against a certain Mr. Satpal Gupta and another against one Mr. Vipin Gupta.

BSNL filed the suit for recovery of Rs.1,24,078/- from Mr. Satpal and Rs. Rs.33,474/- from Mr. Vipin. In both cases interestingly, the amount was not only disputed, but it was claimed that no amount was due to BSNL at all.

However, the court accepted the evidence presented to it by BSNL, although it is not mentioned what this evidence was (presumably these were print outs of the bills of the two customers).

BSNL has filed an appeal in the High Court against the order passed by the lower court which said that BSNL could not claim the amounts since it was too late in filing the suit and it was ‘barred by limitation’ (a legal term for when the time limit within which the suit should have been filed, has elapsed).

However, the High Court ruled in favour of BSNL saying that it was only incorporated on 1st October, 2000 and that the suit was filed in within the limitation period of 3 years. In the first case, it passed an order for recovery of Rs.1,24,078/-  along with interest thereon @ 9% per annum from Mr. Satpal and Rs.33,474/- along with interest @ 6% per annum from Mr. Vipin Gupta.