Telephone Saga: AMUL to claim money from B M Vyas

M Vyas the former Managing Director of GCMMF, the federation which owns Amul brand has controversies galore at the time of his exit. Even though the Vyas –Bhatol spat is yet not completely over, new controversy of making “sex talk calls or party calls” from one of the telephones installed at Vyas’s residence in the campus of Anand has come up.

The matter refers to January 1996 when he got a bi-monthly bill of Rs 3,62.723 from the telephone department. Again on June 1996 he got a bill of Rs 91,929. He protested to the telecom department and the matter went to court. Long drawn legal battle finally landed before Supreme Court which, after examining the facts of the case has asked Amul to pay the bill. The apex court found merit in the argument of Telecom Department.

Talking to Indiancooperative.com Mr Parthi Bhai Bhatol, Chairman of GCMMF said that the Supreme Court order will be followed and the bill amount will be paid to telephone department. But when this reporter asked him as to how cooperative members’ money could be used for funding the fun of officials, Parthi Bhatol said that the dues will be claimed from Vyas whose some money is still with GCCMF.Though his PF has been released which we can not hold, he still has enough money with GCMMF to take care of this bill, said Mr. Bhatol.

But Indian cooperative has come to know that leave aside the telephone bill amount of 4.5 lakh, the amount burnt in fighting the litigation from lower court to High Court to Supreme Court is also huge. When grilled further Bhatol admitted that even this amount will be charged to B M Vyas’s account.

Well, money could be recovered but what about the reputation? The massage that emerge is cooperative officials are callously misusing members’ money. Are you going to claim that too from Visa’s account, Bhatol had no answer to this.

In proving the case telecom department argued that if you talk to say A and C. It is you only who has talked to B also. The lines were secure with distribution point box being located on the federation’s premises and were under round-the-clock security.

Phone was connected to electronic exchange with little chance of misuse. Besides, there was provision of dynamic lock which the complainant could have used, it argued. The bills showed that talks were made on daily basis.

The argument which strengthened telephone department claim was that calls were made in such a close proximity that it is not possible for complainant not to notice the same.

It further argued that it could have been made by any family member of the subscriber, who had a son who was sitting for his Class X pre-board exam.

A two-judge Supreme Court bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari ruled in favour of telecom department.