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Judgment
THIS appeal is by the complainant against the order of the District Forum dismissing the dispute case with a direction to pay Rs. 2,000/- to opposite party No. 1-respondent No. 5 towards compensation.
THE brief fact of the case of the complainant is that there is deficiency in service on the part of the respondents for non-delivery of the registered Air Mails from the appellant''s sister which was despatched from Oswabruck, Germany, on 1.3.1994 bearing No. 874-B containing 1000 Deustsche Marks (about Rs. 30,000/- in Indian Currency) by the GPO, Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The appellant is a resident of Nabrangpur and his relatives are settled in Germany, U.K. and Spain and he gets various foreign despatches through Air Mail from abroad. On 1.3.1994 a registered letter bearing No. 784-B was despatched to the appellant from Germany containing 1000 Deustsche Marks. Further, on 20.6.1994 another registered letter was despatched to the appellant from Berlin containing 100 Deustsche Marks. The appellant came to know about the aforesaid registered despatches from his sister which were not delivered to him by the Indian Postal authorities. The appellant started approaching the said Postal authorities regarding non-receipt of the despatches. He also submitted a letter on 26.11.1994 to the Director of Foreign Post, Calcutta, for delivery of the aforesaid registered letters. He also wrote letters to the respondents. On 21.6.1995 respondent No. 4 issued a letter to the appellant saying that respondent No. 3 verified the records from 2.3.1994 to 9.3.1994 and from 21.6.1994 to 28.6.1994 and found that no such registered despatches were received. It is alleged that the respondent ran from pillar to post but no fruitful action was taken in the matter.
The respondents in their show-cause stated that the case is not maintainable.
THE District Forum passed an ex parte order as the respondents did not appear on the due dates. THE respondents in their written version said that the foreign registered letter was not received by the respondent Nos. 4 and 5. Respondent No. 1 was in no way responsible for the non-delivery. THEre was, therefore, no negligence on the part of the respondents for alleged non-delivery of the foreign registered letters, as they did not receive them in Indianand the respondents are only responsible for delivery after receipt of the foreign registered articles. It was not possible to deliver the same if the same were not received. After thorough verification of the records the above two authorities at Calcutta and Bombay who deal with only foreign mails have intimated that no such letters were received by them. Allegations in the matter of foreign currency is not accepted, as sending of currency notes of such high value in a letter is not permissible under the Reserve Bank Guidelines and under Section 16 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973.
ON perusal of the records, we are of the view that the appellant''s allegations cannot be accepted. We have gone through the records thoroughly and we find that there is no deficiency in service on the part of the respondents with this view, the appeal dismissed. Mr. Pramodnath Dass, Member-I agree. Appeal dismissed.