A.P.SUSHEELA SOMASEKAR vs M.P.JOHN

THE complainant appeals.

THE complainant had a house built by the respondents and he found some important defects in the construction. THErefore he filed a complaint seeking direction to the opposite party to rectify the defects and to pay compensation for damages to the tune of Rs. 1,35,500/- and an additional amount of Rs. 50,000/- for mental agony. When the matter was enquired into by the District Forum it was admitted that the cause of action arose in the year 1989, when the complainant first noticed the defects and therefore a question arose whether the matter was within the period of limitation. The complaint was filed on 20.7.94 and by that time Section 24-A has come into force prescribing two years of limitation. After hearing fully the parties on the point of limitation, the District Forum came to the conclusion that the matter was barred by limitation and accordingly dismissed.

In this appeal the complainant would urge that the complaint is not hit by limitation. In this connection he put forth three grounds: First ground is that as per Section 3 of the Consumer Protection Act the provisions of the Act shall be in addition to and not in derogation of the provisions and any other law for the time being in force and that therefore the period of limitation as in the French Code prescribing a period of limitation of 30 years would be applicable. The above said provision of law is found in Article 2262 of French Code Civil and is applicable to civil cases only and not to other kind of cases relating to commerce, labour and industrial etc. The proceeding under the Consumer Protection Act is for the purpose of providing relief to consumers outside the realm of civil law; it cannot be considered as a civil action and, therefore, Article 2262 of the French Code Civil would not be applicable.

SECONDLY Article 2262 of the French Code Civil has prescribed the general period of limitation, applicable only when no other period of limitation has been prescribed. In the Code Civil itself there are provisions for shorter period of limitation for several matters. In the "Code de Commerce" and "Code de Travail" and other French enactments shorter periods of limitation are prescribed. Since in this case a special period of limitation of two years has been prescribed by the Consumer Protection Act, the general provision of limitation of 30 years would not apply. The second ground urged is that the provision embodied under Section 24-A of the Consumer Protection Act which came into force on 18.6.93 cannot be given retrospective effect that is to say cannot apply to a cause of action which arose prior to 18.6.1993. This contention would be of some use to the complainant, if there was no limitation whatsoever before the Consumer Forum prior to the coming into force of the provision under Section 24-A. Of course before the insertion of that section there was no statutory provision for limitation in the Consumer Protection Act. But the very scheme of the Consumer Protection Act, which directs the FORA to complete the cases within a period of 90 days, contemplates quick process of the case which implies necessarily complaints by the aggrieved parties in the shortest possible time. Therefore it has been consistently held that stale claims would not be entertained by the Consumer FORA. If any reference is needed for this purpose one can refer to M/s. Indu Video Films (P) Ltd. v. Punjab National Bank & Ors. reported in National Commission Rulings on Consumer 1985-1995 by Dr. S.P. Balwada - Page 959. In this case when Section 24-A came into force on 18.6.1993, the cause of action was already four years old and even without Section 24-A this claim made on 20.7.1994 would have been rejected by the District Forum as stale claim as per the law prevailing at that time when the cause of action arose. Therefore, the contention based on non-retro- activity of law is not of any help to him.

IT was thirdly urged that in this case there was a continuing cause of action since the defects continued to exist. We are unable to accept that this is a continuing cause of action. There will be continuing cause of action when periodically the same cause of action arises. For instance, payment of pension or payment of salary etc. at a rate which is not the proper one. The cause of action gets renewed every month when such payment is made without applying the proper rate. In this case the effect of the defect of course continues to exist, but there is no renewal of such defect giving room for a right of action. In other words continuing cause of action means renewal of rights of action by the repetition of the wrong and it is not so in this case. We have therefore unable to accept this contention. In the result, the appeal fails and is dismissed. No coat. Appeal dismissed.