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Judgment
Karuna Nand Bajpayee,Presiding Member
This revision has been filed under section section 58(1)(b) of The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 in challenge to the Order dated 24.01.2023 of the State Commission in Appeal no. 597 of 2022 arising out of the Order dated 26.08.2022 of the District Commission in Complaint no. 08 of 2020.
Relevant facts of the case have been succinctly captured by the State Commission in para 3 of its impugned Order, which are being reproduced below for reference:
The brief facts evolve from the complaint are that the Ops No. 1 & 2 are builders and OP No. 3 was their agent. Complainant wanted to purchase a 2BHK flat, so he paid an amount of Rs.3,00,000/- on 08.04.2013 as first instalment and this is how in all a total amount of 10,41,312/- was paid to the Ops on different dates. Ops assured him that the flat in question complete in all respects will be hand over to him within a period of 3 ½ years when he paid first instalment. It was alleged that he visited the site of OPs in the months of November 2016 but found that construction work had not even been started at the site and position was again the same in the month of April,2018. Thereafter, he requested Ops to refund his deposited amount, but all in vain. Thus, there was deficiency in service on the part of Ops, he filed this complaint.
Aggrieved by the same, an Appeal was filed before the State Commission which also met the same fate and was dismissed vide its impugned Order dated 24.01.2023 which reads as follows:
From the record it emerges that respondent No. 1-complanant booked a residential unit of 2 BHK on 08.04.20213, in the project of appellant’s by paying an amount of Rs. 3,00,000/- and in all paid an amount of Rs. 10,41,312/- to the appellants. It is also admitted case of the appellants that the construction work of the project has not been completed so far despite there being an agreement executed between the parties and in the alternative the appellants have failed to refund the deposited amount to complainant. The OPs-present appellants were responsible for negligence and deficiency in service rendered by them to the complainant-respondent No. 1 and as such, while allowing the complaint vide order dated 26.08.2022, no illegality was committed by the learned District Commission, Panipat. Resultantly, present appeal is being devoid of merits and stands dismissed in limini.
The present Revision Petition has been now in challenge to the impugned Order dated 24.01.2023.
The submission as has been pressed forth by the learned counsel is within a brief canvas. The only point that has been pressed by the learned counsel relates to the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission where the complaint was filed. According to the counsel, the complaint was filed in the District Commission on 09.01.2020 and at that time the limit of pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission was Rs.20 lakhs while the value of the compensation claimed in the complaint exceeded this limit as it was to the tune of about Rs. 29 lakhs. Submission is that as such when the written version was filed by the Petitioner / Opposite Party in the District Commission, it raised the objection in this regard. According to the learned counsel, the complaint ought to have been filed in the State Commission. It has been contended that this objection with regard to the pecuniary jurisdiction has not been considered by the District Commission while passing its order. Later on, when the Appeal was filed before the State Commission on 21.10.2022 the similar objection was raised in the Appeal but there too the same did not favourably weigh and was ignored.
According to the learned counsel now the matter should be remanded back to the State Commission to be decided afresh as the said irregularity as involved cannot be covered up. This is the sole point raised on behalf of the Petitioner.
Perused the record including inter alia the Order passed by the District Commission as well as the impugned Order passed by the State Commission.
It may be relevant to take note of the certain relevant dates. The Complaint was filed in the District Commission on 09.01.2020 and that time the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission to entertain the Complaint was upto the limit of Rs.20 lakhs. Subsequently, during the pendency of the Complaint and even before the written version by the Petitioner / Opposite Party was filed, the new Consumer Protection Act, 2019 came into force. The date of enforcement of the new Act 2019 is 20.07.2020, whereby the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission was enhanced upto the limit of Rs.1 crore. Subsequently, while the new Act 2019 had already come in force, the written version by the Petitioner / Opposite Party appears to have been filed in the District Commission on 07.04.2021 which was the ‘Date of Hearing’ as shown in the true copy of the reply / written version of the petitioner / opposite party, wherein the objection relating to the pecuniary jurisdiction was raised. It may also be mentioned that on 30.12.2021 the limit of pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission was further amended / altered and was kept upto the limit of Rs.50 lakhs vide Government Notification dated 30.12.2021 but this reduction is not material for the purpose of the present case.
The perusal of the record and especially perusal of the impugned Order passed by the State Commission shows that it has thoroughly gone through the entire facts of the case and has adequately appraised and appreciated the evidence available on record produced by the parties. It was after going through the entire factual matrix and evidence available before it, the State Commission came to the same conclusion and confirmed the findings and the award made by the District Commission.
Learned counsel for the Petitioner has been fair enough to admit that much before the Petitioner took the objection regarding the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission, the new Act of 2019 had come into force and the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission stood enhanced by that time. It is certainly not a case in which the time when the complaint was decided i.e. on 26.08.2022, the adjudicating authority did not have the necessary pecuniary jurisdiction. If for the sake of argument the Bench presumes that the District Commission should have returned or dismissed the Complaint after the objection was raised, in that event when the Complainant would have gone to the State Commission to file its Complaint the State Commission could have as well said that the Complainant should go back to the District Commission and file its Complaint there because the District Commission has already been vested with enough pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the Complaint. The State Commission would have certainly not entertained that complaint, as its valuation did not exceed to come upto the level of its jurisdiction and fell far short of it in the wake of the new Act 2019.
It may be germane to quote and refer to the relevant statutes of The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 with regard to pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission as well as that of State Commission. The relevant extract of section 34 of the Act 2019 reads as follows:
Jurisdiction of District Commission: Subject to the other provisions of this Act, the District Commission shall have jurisdiction to entertain complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration does not exceed one crore rupees: Provided that where the Central Government deems it necessary so to do, it may prescribe such other value, as it deems fit.
The pecuniary jurisdiction of State Commission is provided under section 47 of the Act 2019, the relevant extract of which reads as follows:
The Jurisdiction of the State Commission.— (1) Subject to the other provisions of this Act, the State Commission shall have jurisdiction—
` (a) to entertain—
(i) complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration, exceeds rupees one crore, but does not exceed rupees ten crore:
Provided that where the Central Government deems it necessary so to do, it may prescribe such other value, as it deems fit;
Later on, vide Govt. Notification No. CG-DL-E-31122021-232278 dated 30.12.2021 in The Gazette of India, the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commission and the State Commission were amended. The relevant amending provisions read as follows:
Jurisdiction of District Commission.—Subject to the other provisions of the Act and in pursuance of proviso to sub-section (1) of section 34 of the Act, the District Commission shall have jurisdiction to entertain complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration does not exceed fifty lakh rupees.
Jurisdiction of State Commission.—Subject to the other provisions of the Act and in pursuance of proviso to sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of sub-section (1) of section 47, the State Commission shall have jurisdiction to entertain complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration exceeds fifty lakh but does not exceed two crore rupees.
Obviously enough in the event of dismissal of the Complaint by the District Commission on the ground of lack of pecuniary jurisdiction, the Complainant would have gone to the State Commission only to be returned back with the same objection. Why would the State Commission have entertained the Complaint with regard to which at that point of time the District Commission had already been armed with the required pecuniary jurisdiction sufficient to entertain the Complaint and regarding which there was a pecuniary embargo imposed by statute against the State Commission
This is not a case where the time when the objection was raised by the Petitioner or the time when the Complaint was decided, the District Commission did not have the pecuniary jurisdiction. The facts are to the contrary. Sufficient pecuniary jurisdiction had already been vested in the District Commission even before the objection in that regard could be raised. The quasi civil proceedings of the Commission are certainly not proceedings relating to a criminal trial. Filing of the Consumer Complaint here is different in essence from filing a criminal complaint against an accused for committing certain offences. Admission of a Complaint or issuing notice is not equal to taking cognizance of some criminal punishable offences by the court or to the act of summoning the accused to face criminal trial where it may be contended, under certain circumstances, that if the act of taking cognizance of offence was bad in the eyes of law the entire subsequent proceeding of criminal trial may get vitiated.
In the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, even if for discussion’s sake the Bench presumes that the proceedings of the Consumer Complaint case in between the date of its filing and the date when the pecuniary jurisdiction was enhanced should be termed as irregular proceedings, it is of significance to note that during this interregnum no such order or direction, much less than verdict of any kind, has been passed which may be said to have favourably or adversely affected the rights of either party even remotely in the slightest manner. Nature of such nascent initial proceeding is confined to the extent wherein nothing happened, except that in the normal wont only the notice was issued. No such order of import or consequence determining or affecting the right or liability was passed which may be said to have caused any substantial prejudice to the Petitioner or his adversary. In the conspicuous facts and circumstances of the case, the subsequent conferment of jurisdiction which came into force even before the objection could be raised, must be deemed to have cured the said irregularity if at all it was there. In case, this Bench takes any other view this would lead to some absurd consequences, as have already been mentioned and discussed. On the presentation of complaint in the State Commission after its dismissal or return from District Commission on ground of lack of pecuniary jurisdiction, the State Commission must have refused to entertain the Complaint because by that time the State Commission’s jurisdiction had already been enhanced and rendered far beyond the valuation of complaint. The complainant had to go again to the District Commission because necessary pecuniary jurisdiction had already been bestowed on the District Commission by that time.
For the State Commission, the relevant date would be not the date when the cause of action arose but the date when the Complainant would have gone to the State Commission to file its Complaint. Thus it is clear that if the District Commission would have accepted the objection raised by the opposite party, Complainant would have been rendered remediless because there was no question for the State Commission to entertain the Complaint which involved the amount falling short of its pecuniary jurisdiction. In these circumstances, this Bench does not think that the objection raised by the Petitioner may be said to be reasonable at all. Ordinarily, objections relating to the pecuniary jurisdiction become of the importance because they may go to vitiate the verdict for the reason of lack of pecuniary jurisdiction at that time but in the particular and conspicuous circumstances of the present case, the objection raised cannot be allowed to vitiate the verdict given by the fora below.
It is true that it was desirable that the objection or the issue raised on behalf of the Petitioner / Opposite Party ought to have been discussed and decided. But now after so many years when there are two concurrent findings of the fora below, this Bench does not think it advisable or even conscionable to remand the case back for this reason alone.
The State Commission has already made a full appraisal of facts and has appreciated the evidence while hearing the appeal. Request for remanding the case back to the State Commission to restart the complaint proceedings de novo afresh is highly unjustified. Even this Bench has, as a matter of abundant precaution gone through the entire record and two verdicts given by the fora below but does not mark any element of perversity in appreciation of the evidence. The grievances of the Complainant and the liability of the Petitioner / Opposite Party has not been even disputed before us. The deficiency of service and the injustice caused to the Complainant is apparent on the face of record and this Bench does not find anything which may persuade it to take a different view of the matter. Acceding to the request of remanding the case back now will lead to nothing except travesty of justice and would defeat the very object of the Act. No such material irregularity or jurisdictional error is perceptible which may go to vitiate the findings of the impugned Orders.
In view of the discussion above, the instant Revision Petition being bereft of merit stands dismissed as such.
The Registry is requested to send a copy each of this Order to the parties in the petition and to their learned counsel as well as to the State Commission immediately. The stenographer is also requested to upload this Order on the website of this Commission immediately.