Kissa Telephone ka

My Dad narrated his experience about Telephone exchange officials…

Here how it goes…

 We brought a new house in Raviwar Peth around 1977. We shifted here from our Guruwar Peth place. My uncle shifted to the old Guruwar Peth place.

We had a telephone at home which was allocated to the firm named G & B where my dad was partner. The firm provided residential telephones for all the partners. The firm was dissolved in 1974. According to the oral deal that was done all the residential phones were given to the corresponding partners.  

After shifting to new place dad wanted to apply for relocation of the telephone. He sent a peon from his office to submit the form. The peon went and submitted it. The telephone exchange employee there asked the peon who is Mr. Shah from G & B firm. The peon replied that the firm is resolved and Mr. shah is now partner in firm B & S.  The telephone exchange employee wrote the comment on form to get “Dissolve deed” for the firm. Peon came back and told so to my dad.

Now the trouble started…

There was no Dissolve deed. Indian law allows to waiver of dissolve deed and allows oral commitments when there are no debatable issues between partners. My dad went to telephone exchange, told the employee that he doesn’t have any such deed, showed him the law book that no written deed is required. But the employee said no but the deed is necessary for transfer. Phew…

Dad consulted a lawyer who suggested to make affidavits from all partners that they don’t have objection if you take your residential telephone with you to your new place. There were 4 partners in G & B including dad. Dad requested each one to make affidavit. He took all 3 affidavits to telephone exchange. But the employee refused to took them too. No I need the deed. After 4 years of dissolving make a deed? Dad went to all higher levels in that exchange but to no avail.

Ahh… Hopeless…

Complicatedly,

Dad had brought Raviwar Peth house from Mr. Gandi. My uncle worked with Mr. Gandhi. The Gandhi firm used to provide residential phones to all the employees. So he needed to provide one to my uncle. His own phone was not transferred from Raviwar peth house to his new place. So what he suggested to my Dad is you use my phone and instead of providing a new phone to your brother let him use your phone in Guruwar Peth. OK.

We operated like this for 6 years.

One day my dad met some telephone exchange officer. Dad told him what had happened. The officer says if you have partnership deed that is sufficient if you have all 3 affidavits that’s more than sufficient. Dissolve deed is not needed. Make a fresh new request in telephone exchange. Dad did and the telephone was transferred in no time.

The regular employees from government services do know there mundane work but will be completely unaware about the exception rules. More so they don’t know the law. And when someone tries to make them understand, they refuse.

Well this sure was the story way back in 1977. Hope with competition from TATA and Reliance now things have changed and are changing for better.