First came the ugly looking television antennas that had to be erected on rooftops. Then it was the neighbourhood cable wallah, and later, the direct-to-home (DTH) service provider and Internet Protocol Television Service provider. Yet, despite the variety, there is considerable consumer dissatisfaction with the services.

Well, a recent order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission should act as a wake-up call to all those service providers who treat consumers shabbily and do not respond to their complaints with alacrity.

The order has its origin in a complaint filed by Kamla Lall. As per the complaint, lodged on December 28, 2006, Lall ordered for two Tata Sky DTH connections. The very next day, two set top boxes were delivered at her residence by M/s Choudhary Agencies, who informed her that the Tata Sky engineers will energise the system on December 31, 2006. However, the engineers came only on January 4, after she threatened to return the set top boxes. Even here, they could activate only one set top box. On the ground that her second television set was not compatible with the set top box, they did not activate the other and also refused to take it back. Also, the first connection had some initial glitches for which she had to call the engineers once again to set it right.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum directed that the consumer be refunded the cost of the set top box, being Rs 3,774, and also pay a compensation of Rs 15,000.

In its revision petition before the National Commission, Tata Sky argued that the complainant was not a consumer of Tata Sky Limited as no payment had been made to them, but to Choudhary Agencies for the purchase of the set top boxes. And as far as activating the connection was concerned, there was an initial hitch with the first connection which had been set right, but that cannot be described as deficient service. The second connection could not be activated as the television set was incompatible.

Dismissing these contentions, the apex consumer court held that there was deficiency on the part of the service provider and the State Commission had correctly described the compensation awarded as very modest and the Commission fully agreed with that view (RP No 3044 of 2010, decided on January 14, 2011).

This order certainly strengthens the rights of consumers vis-à-vis service providers in the television industry. It should also force the latter to pay more attention to consumer complaints and sort them out quickly.