AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
This revision petition has been filed by the petitioner Arnab Kumar Sarkar and Anr against the order dated 7th September 2017 passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, West Bengal, (in short 'the State Commission') in FA No. A/424/ 2016.
After filing the revision petition the petitioner did not appear and sent a communication that he is an old person and cannot come to New Delhi to attend the proceedings and requested that his revision petition may be decided on merits based on the documents already filed by him.
It is the case of the petitioner that he along with his wife booked a tour to USA with the opposite party. The tour was first to start from Kolkata however, only a few days before the trip it was informed that the tour will start from New Delhi. This caused lot of Logistic problems to the petitioners and mental agony. It was further alleged that no help was provided to the petitioners and his wife even though senior citizen handling charges were also taken by the opposite party. Moreover, the hotels in USA were not upto the mark and the passengers had to wait for long at the New York airport for the manager of the opposite party to come and receive the party. The petitioner filed consumer complaint before the District Forum and the District Forum allowed refund of Rs.34,510/-along with a compensation of Rs.85,000/- together with litigation cost of Rs.10,000/- to be paid within 30 days of the order and in default interest @ 10% per annum was also payable.
Opposite party preferred appeal before The State Commission and the State Commission vide order dated 7th September 2017 partly allowed the Appeal by directing the opposite party to refund Rs.20,000/- along with compensation of Rs.30,000/- and cost of litigation of rupees 10,000/- The order was needed to be complied with within 45 days otherwise the interest @ 9% per annum shall be payable on the amount of Rs.20,000/- from the date of filing of the complaint till realisation.
The present revision petition has been filed against the order dated 07.09.2017 of the State Commission. The same grounds have been mentioned in the revision petition as were taken up in the complaint. It has been stated in revision petition that the State Commission has not considered the gravity of the deficiencies on the part of the opposite party in changing the starting point for the international journey as well as for not providing the services that was promised.
I have considered the grounds of revision petition and have perused the record. Clearly the District Forum has awarded huge compensation of Rs.85,000/- whereas the refund amount was only Rs.34,500/-. The State Commission has rationalised the amount of refund as well as the amount of compensation in the facts and circumstances of the case. A consumer forum has to assess compensation under section 14 (1) (d) of the Consumer Protection Act 1986 keeping in view the loss and injury suffered by the complainant due to negligence of the opposite party. The complainant has not specified any particular loss during the journey and has only narrated some problems having been faced by the complainant and his wife during the tour. Keeping in view the nature of problems suffered by the complainant and his wife, I find that the State Commission has rightly assessed the compensation as well as the refund to be paid to the complainant in the facts and circumstances of the case.
Based on the above discussion, I do not find any illegality material irregularity or jurisdictional error in the order dated 7th September 2017 passed by the State Commission which calls for any interference from this Commission. Accordingly, the Revision Petition No. 3253 of 2017 is dismissed at the admission stage.