Citizens’ Travails

Samaritan let off after 10 yrs 

 New Delhi: More than 10 years after the police slapped a dacoity charge on the driver of a commercial vehicle who had helped a man robbed by four assailants, a city court acquitted him in the case.

    Shakil, who was driving a TCR on the night of September 18, 1996, was implicated in the matter when a man robbed by unknown offenders claimed in an FIR that the driver had links with the robbers.
    The driver, however, challenged this allegation in court and contended that it was he who took complainant B M Gupta to his friend’s house after the incident and then drove them to police station.

    The court accepted Shakil’s plea and said: ‘‘If the accused is one of the culprits then he was also in a position to run away, but instead he took the complainant to the latter’s friend’s house and then to the police station.’’ PTI

Exorbitant bills: MTNL draws flak

New Delhi: The State Consumer Commission has come down heavily on a public-sector telecom company for its ‘‘indifferent and mechanical approach’’ towards the grievances of consumers and directed it to withdraw exorbitant telephone bills against a person.
   ‘‘Instead of taking action against its own officials the appellant authority (MTNL) has inflicted a heavy blow on a poor consumer…,’’ Justice J D Kapoor, president of the Commission, said, referring to the sudden increase in the telephone bills of one Rajiv, a resident of Vasant Kunj.
   Dismissing MTNL’s appeal against a district consumer forum’s order to withdraw the two bills, the Commission said, ‘‘A poor consumer who for last two years has not made more than 200-400 calls and suddenly to expect him to have made 29,000-34,000 calls is mindboggling.’’
   It expressed unhappiness over the fact that MTNL had failed to properly inquire into the the huge bills of Rs 41,132 and Rs 29,877 against him. PTI