Can consumer case be filed against bsnl?

Yes sir you can initiate proceedings under COPA ,1986.However u need to serve a Legal notice first

What do you mean by BSNL Customer Support ‘accidently’ told you your actual plan? Aren’t you aware of the plan you applied for and the one you are registered to and paying for, as indicated in your monthly bill?

If it is not technically feasible to provide you 8 Mbps plan and last mile infrastructure only allows 4Mbps, BSNL is not liable for any deficiency of service, so long as you are being charged  for a 4Mbps plan and not an 8 Mbps plan. Refer to BSNL broadband plans here.

Then again throttling down speeds after a fixed usage limit is known as a Fair Usage Limit and you cannot challenge that before any Court or Forum. However, if BSNL is throttling your speeds before you’ve crossed the Fair Usage Limit, that is deficiency. So far as I understand, MTNL user portal gives detailed usage logs indicating the time when the ADSL was logged into, how long  the session was 'up' and how much data was downloaded and uploaded; BSNL must have something similar - look around. Take printouts of your usage logs, if need be, to establish you have not crossed the Fair Usage Limit. At the same time, test the broadband speed at https://speedtester.bsnl.co.in - it is stated as BSNL official page; take a snap of your speed test with a current newspaper dated masthead to keep a record of the speed. Shoot off an email to cmdcomplaints@bsnl.co.in and keep your fingers crossed. My personal experience with the higher up officials of MTNL has been that they are prepared to listen if you are able to justify your complaint/issue, and that if you convince the higher ups, those lower down the order rush to fix the issue.

Even then, it’d be very hard to prove that your usage is being actually, actively being throttled by BSNL because, as you do realize, ADSL depends on a lot of factors - user to bandwiddth ratio, telephone exchange infrastructure, last mile connectivity, modem, router - to name a few. In an ideal world, broadband service providers ought to be penalised for deficiency of service if the speeds are below a promised standards; but heh...who are we kidding; we don’t live in an ideal world. Almost all broadband service providers seek refuge behind the fact they never promised 4Mbps but “up to” 4 Mbps, i.e. qualified by technical limitations of “up to” - to the extent possible given the infrastructure.

Now comes the corker. In terms of General Manager, Telecom v. Krishnan, decided by the Supreme Court AIR 2010 SC 90, in terms of Section 7B of the Indian Telegraph Act, a consumer dispute is not maintainable against BSNL before a Consumer Forum, and it has to resolved by arbitration in proceedings before an arbitrator appointed by BSNL. That was the situation until 2014 , unless some new decision has come up. Some consumer forums still took up dispute against BSNL differentiating the decision in Krishnan, but there were not many, as for most of them, this was the easy way out to avoid work

@atul

Thank you for the reply.  I had taken this connection even after knowing how great is the service of BSNL (not to forget they give wrong bills for thousands of rupees when they cant collect same from other customers, this I have seen decades back) but somehow as per my friends the service of BSNL has vastly improved, where it used to take 7 days for technician to come and check what is wrong with the connection, it has reduced to 3 days now.  I wanted a internet connection and having tried airtel which has other unique problems than what bsnl is right now posing, felt let me try bsnl once again.

I have the bills, the call recordings, the screen shots, the speed results (ookla), inspite of all this they can somehow produce some document which might show that I have used my data limit.  I dont know how to counter that.  As BSNL self care portal itself does not open, such is the great speed.  Registration process of creating ID also is not proper, as I wont get link to email ID ever.  BSNL has managed everything in such way that customer wont know how much data he or she has used.  And has to rely only upon what customer care executive checks and tells.  This information I have thorugh call recordings.

But BSNL have grossly failed in providing reasonable service even if one goes by UPTO Mbps theory, as most of the time the yellow light on the modem is not there at all.

I can claim compensation for the headache  that they have given by simply coming and sitting at my house and sit for hours whenever complaint is raised. and the hours spent on contacting customer care whose calls get disconnected for reasons best known to them only.

Any further points will be helpful.  Many thanks.

Deleting ID, but will keep track of suggestions given.

Mr.Atul has given a very long & detailed reply. Thanks for the patience.