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Judgment
Taken up through video conferencing.
This revision has been filed under section 21(b) of the Act 1986 in challenge to the State Commission's Order dated 08.07.2014 in appeal no. 450 of 2014 arising out of the District Commission's Order dated 25.03.2014 in complaint no. 24 of 2010.
We have heard the learned counsel for the two sides and have perused the material on record including inter alia the District Commission's Order dated 25.03.2014, the State Commission's impugned Order dated 08.07.2014 and the petition.
The respondent complainant's case was that he took loan of Rs. 2,51,900/- in 2006 from the petitioner finance co. for a tractor. He paid the instalments. In June 2009 he was told that a residual amount of Rs. 15000/- was still due from him. He anyhow arranged the money on interest from other sources and paid the said Rs. 15,000/- asked for. As such he repaid the entire loan (inclusive of interest) to the finance co. He was provided a statement of account which showed the loan outstanding to be 'nil', and was told that he could take the original R.C. & T.C. booklet of the tractor and a certificate that the entire loan had been repaid within 15-20 days. After 15-20 days he was told that the original documents were kept in custody in some other branch. Despite repeated requests and visits to its offices he was not given the said documents. In December 2009, after about 06 months, the finance co. told him that an additional amount of Rs. 35,000/- was due from him and that the documents could be made available to him only after he paid the said amount also.
The District Commission partly allowed the complaint on contest. It arrived at the finding that the loan had in fact been repaid in full in June 2009 itself and nothing was outstanding. It ordered the finance co. to hand over the original R. C. & T.C. booklet of the subject tractor as also a certificate to the effect that the loan has been repaid in full to enable cancelling of the entry regarding mortgage in the R. C. For the loss and injury suffered it awarded monetary compensation of Rs. 50,000/- with interest at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of filing of the complaint till the date of actual realisation.
The State Commission dismissed the finance co.'s appeal in limini .
As such this petition has been filed apropos concurrent findings of the two fora below.
We note that the District Commission after making the necessary appraisal of the evidence arrived at reasoned findings that the loan had in fact been repaid in full in June 2009 and as such the finance co. was duty bound to hand over the original R. C. & T. C. booklet and a corresponding certificate that the loan had been repaid. The State Commission re-appraised the case in appeal and for cogent reasons recorded categorically held that the view taken by the District Commission was neither perverse nor unreasonable.
We also note that the two fora below felt constrained to make adverse observations in respect of the finance co. furnishing two differing statements of account, one to the complainant and one in the District Commission. We further note that in appeal the learned counsel for the finance co. referred to changes in the software implemented by the finance co. which according to him resulted in generation of two different statements of account. In this regard we may observe that changes in the software cannot be ground for generating two different statements of the same account with material variance, the finance co. was duty bound to maintain its financial details accurately, without discrepancy or error. Failure to maintain the financial details accurately reflects adversely on its bonafides .
We further note that the State Commission has clearly held that the last installment was paid in June 2009 and in the statement of account in June 2009 'nil' 'instalment account balance' was reflected i.e. the amount required to be paid by the complainant to the finance co. was shown as 'nil'. It has rightly observed that still if at all any additional charges were still to be recovered, the same should necessarily have been communicated to the complainant when he paid the final instalment in June 2009, and not after about 06 months in December 2009 (after repeated requests and visits having been made by the complainant to get back his documents).
The Orders of the two fora below are a matter of record, no useful purpose will be served by reproducing them all over again here. Suffice is to say that we find that the State Commission has passed a well-appraised reasoned Order. It has concurred with the findings of the District Commission. We find no manifest perversity as may cause to require de novo re-appreciation of the evidence in revision. And we do not find any jurisdictional error, or a legal principle ignored, or miscarriage of justice having been occasioned, as may call for interference in the exercise of this Commission's revisional jurisdiction.
We see reason to observe that delay in release of the original R. C. & T. C. booklet and issuance of certificate for an unreasonable period beyond June 2009 is a deficient and unfair & deceptive act. The very fact that two differing statements of account were adduced by the finance co., as also its awkwardly insipid and unpersuasive explanation for the same that its software had been changed, raise questions regarding its suspect bonafides and is also per se a deficient and unfair & deceptive act. Asking for an additional amount of Rs. 35,000/- after about 06 months of the last instalment having been paid and that too pertinently enough despite there being a statement of account showing 'nil' amount due from the complainant, does not reflect favourably on the bonafides of the finance co. and its intentions. And significantly there is nothing on record to show that the finance co. either fixed responsibility or even took any steps to determine accountability on its errant functionary(ies) answerable for adducing two anomalously differing statements of account, which is not only a poor reflection on its managerial functioning but also bespeaks of its callous, though misplaced, sense of highhanded unaccountability.
Ingredients and all the accouterments of 'deficiency in service' within the meaning of Section 2(1)(g) & (o) and of 'unfair trade practice' within the meaning of Section 2(1)(r) of the Act 1986 on the part of finance co. are clearly manifest and well borne out in the present case.
Here we may add, though disconcertingly enough, that as per the proved facts in this case the complainant had repaid his loan in full in June 2009. His original R. C. & T. C. booklet and a certificate from the finance co. that the loan had been repaid was not provided to him. The complainant went before the District Commission in 2010. The District Commission passed its Order in 2014. The finance co. appealed before the State Commission in 2014. The State Commission passed its Order in 2014. The finance co. preferred revision before this Commission in 2014. We are today in 2021. In the absence of the original R. C. & T. C. booklet and certificate of loan having been repaid, the complainant cannot get the hypothecation entry removed from his R. C. booklet, and resultantly he cannot sell or transfer his tractor. And all this when in fact he had repaid the loan in full, the finance co. was inter alia adducing two incompatibly differing statements of account in respect of the same loan, and was audaciously agitating in an intransigent way for additional charges of Rs. 35,000/- without any vindication worth behind it. The Act 1986 is meant for "better protection of the interests of the consumers" in a fight which is recognizedly often amongst unequals. Its statement of objects and reasons speaks of "speedy and simple redressal to consumer disputes". In this case a finance company, with wherewithal, is on the one side, while an ordinary common consumer, without wherewithal, is on the other side. The loss and injury, trouble and prejudice, to which the ordinary common consumer complainant has been put and subjected to needs to be felt and the institutional approach to ameliorate the same deserves to be sensitized.
The petition, being ill-conceived and bereft of merit, is dismissed with stern advice of caution to the finance co. through its chief executive (i.e. its chairman or managing director or the director in-charge of the affairs of the company or the director in-charge of the subject matter, whichever member of its board of directors he may be) through imposition of cost of Rs. 1 lakh, out of which Rs. 50 thousand shall be paid to the complainant and Rs. 50 thousand shall be deposited in the consumer legal aid account of the District Commission. The finance co. through its chief executive shall be well advised to inculcate and imbibe systemic improvements for future so that ordinary common consumers are not put to or have to face the ordeal of such loss and injury, trouble and prejudice, as has attended the complainant in the instant case.
The finance co. through its chief executive is ordered to comply with the award made by the District Commission and to pay / deposit the cost imposed by this Commission within four weeks from today, failing which the District Commission shall undertake execution, for ' enforcement ' and for ' penalty ', as per the law.
The Registry is requested to send a copy each of this Order to the parties in the petition and to their learned counsel as also to the chief executive of the finance co. and as well as to the District Commission immediately. The stenographer is requested to upload this Order on the website of this Commission immediately.