Chief Commercial Manager (Refunds) & 2 Ors vs Sanjeevan Guru

This Revision Petition has been filed by the Petitioner against the order dated 19.12.2018 in Appeal No.361/2018 passed by the U.T. Chandigarh State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

Facts in brief are that the Respondent/Complainant purchased railway tickets for four passengers for Rs.10,060/- on 11.11.2016 for their journey from Mumbai to Chandigarh to be performed on 10.01.2017 and ticketing was done from Railway Station Mohali. The Complainant surrendered the tickets on 24.11.2016 and asked for refund. However, Rs.9,220/- was refunded to the Complainant by pay order. The Complainant in the meanwhile filed Consumer Complaint No.CC/885/2017 before the District Forum. The complaint was resisted by the Opposite Party/Petitioner informing that they have already refunded an amount of Rs.9,220/- and no case was made out in the complaint. The District Forum allowed the compensation of Rs.5,000/- as compensation on account of deficiency in service and Rs.5,000/- as cost of litigation.

The Petitioner then preferred an appeal before the State Commission. The State Commission dismissed the appeal and upheld the order of the District Forum vide its order dated 19.12.2018. Hence, the present Revision Petition.

Heard the Learned Counsel for the Petitioner at the admission stage.

Learned Counsel for the Petitioner stated that as the total amount of the tickets was Rs.10,060/- and as per rules of railways, the refund of Rs.9,220/- was already made to the Complainant, in fact the Complainant has not suffered any mental agony and therefore the fora below were not justified in awarding compensation to the Complainant. The Petitioner is a Government organisation and has to follow the rules of refund and accordingly there is no deficiency on the part of the Petitioner and the Revision Petition may be allowed.

I have considered the arguments advanced by the Learned Counsel for the Petitioner and perused records. There is a concurrent finding by the fora below on the amount of compensation and cost of litigation. Though the amount was refunded by the Indian Railways as per their rules still the Fora below have found that the Complainant has suffered harassment and mental agony. Prima-facie as the Indian Railways have already refunded due amount to the Complainant, the Complainant should not have filed the complaint. However, as the fora below have given concurrent findings and scope under the Revision Petition is quite limited in such situation and this Commission cannot reassess the facts as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Mrs. Rubi (Chandra) Dutta vs. United India Insurance Company, 2011 (3) Scale 654, wherein the following has been observed:-

"Also, it is to be noted that the revisional powers of the National Commission are derived from Section 21 (b) of the Act, under which the said power can be exercised only if there is some prima facie jurisdictional error appearing in the impugned order, and only then, may the same be set aside. In our considered opinion there was no jurisdictional error or miscarriage of justice, which could have warranted the National Commission to have taken a different view that what was taken by the two Forums. The decision of the National Commission rests not on the basis of some legal principle that was ignored by the Courts below, but on a different (and in our opinion, an erroneous) interpretation of the same set of facts. This is not the manner in which revisional powers should be invoked. In this view of the matter, we are of the considered opinion that that the jurisdiction conferred on the National Commission under Section 21(b) of the Act has been transgressed. It was not a case where such a view could have been taken, by setting aside the concurrent finding of two fora."

Moreover, the Petitioner is a Government organisation and contesting the case for an award of Rs.10,000/- in total may not be justified looking at the expenses involved in contesting the case. Hon'ble Supreme Court in Gurgaon Gramin Bank Vs. Khazani & Anr., IV (2012) CPJ 5 (SC), has observed;

"2. Number of litigations in our country is on the rise, for small and trivial matters, people and sometimes Central and State Governments and their instrumentalities Banks, nationalized or private, come to courts may be due to ego clash or to save the Officers' skin. Judicial system is over-burdened, naturally causes delay in adjudication of disputes. Mediation centers opened in various parts of our country have, to some extent, eased the burden of the courts but we are still in the tunnel and the light is far away. On more than one occasion, this court has reminded the Central Government, State Governments and other instrumentalities as well as to the various banking institutions to take earnest efforts to resolve the disputes at their end. At times, some give and take attitude should be adopted or both will sink. Unless, serious questions of law of general importance arise for consideration or a question which affects large number of persons or the stakes are very high, Courts jurisdiction cannot be invoked for resolution of small and trivial matters. We are really disturbed by the manner in which those types of matters are being brought to courts even at the level of Supreme Court of India and this case falls in that category."

The Apex Court further held;

"10. The Chief Manager stated in the affidavit that no bill was raised by the counsel for the bank for conducting the matter before the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission. We have not been told how much money has been spent by the bank officers for their to and fro journeys to the lawyers' office, to the District Forum, State Forum, National Commission and, to the Supreme Court. For a paltry amount of ₹15,000/-even according to the affidavit, bank has already spent a total amount of ₹12,950/- leaving aside the time spent and other miscellaneous expenses spent by the officers of the bank for to and fro expenses etc. Further, it may be noted that the District Forum had awarded ₹3,000/-towards cost of litigation and compensation for the harassment caused to Smt. Khazani. Adding this amount, the cost goes up to ₹15,950/-. Remember, the buffalo had died 10 years back, but the litigation is not over, fight is still on for ₹15,000/-.

Learned counsel appearing for the bank, Shri Amit Grover, submitted that though the amount involved is not very high but the claim was fake and on inspection by the insurance company, no tag was found on the dead body of the buffalo and hence the insurer was not bound to make good the loss, consequently the bank had to proceed against Smt. Khazani.

We are of the view that issues raised before us are purely questions of facts examined by the three forums including the National Disputes Redressal Commission and we fail to see what is the important question of law to be decided by the Supreme Court. In our view, these types of litigation should be discouraged and message should also go, otherwise for all trivial and silly matters people will rush to this court.

Gramin Bank like the appellant should stand for the benefit of the gramins who sometimes avail of loan for buying buffaloes, to purchase agricultural implements, manure, seeds and so on. Repayment, to a large extent, depends upon the income which they get out of that. Crop failure, due to drought or natural calamities, disease to cattle or their death may cause difficulties to gramins to repay the amount. Rather than coming to their rescue, banks often drive them to litigation leading them extreme penury. Assuming that the bank is right, but once an authority like District Forum takes a view, the bank should graciously accept it rather than going in for further litigation and even to the level of Supreme Court. Driving poor gramins to various litigative forums should be strongly deprecated because they have also to spend large amounts for conducting litigation. We condemn this type of practice, unless the stake is very high or the matter affects large number of persons or affects a general policy of the Bank which has far reaching consequences.

We, in this case, find no error in the decisions taken by all fact finding authorities including the National Disputes Redressal Commission. The appeal is accordingly dismissed with cost of ₹10,000/- to be paid by the bank to the first respondent within a period of one month. Resultantly, the Bank now has to spend altogether ₹25,950/- for a claim of ₹15,000/-, apart from to and fro travelling expenses of the Bank officials. Let God save the Gramins."

Based on the above observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, this Commission would not like to interfere with the concurrent findings of the fora below. Accordingly, Revision Petition No.574/2019 is dismissed on the grounds mentioned above. However, it is made clear that the orders passed in the present case shall not be treated as precedent.