SAHARA INDIA LTD vs ABU SUFIYAN

HEARD Mr. A. K. Srivastava learned Counsel for the appellant and Mr. M. H. Khan, learned Counsel for the respondent and perused the record.

BY virtue of the judgment dated 1. 5. 1992 challenged by way of this appeal, the District Consumer Forum, Gorakhpur had recorded a finding that it was quite competent to proceed with the execution case No. 12/92. Learned Counsel appearing for the appellant has pointed out that the District Consumer Forum, Azamgarh had been created under the Consumer Protection Act before filing the aforesaid execution petition and, therefore, the said execution petition must have been transferred to the Azamgarh District Consumer Forum-the only competent Forum to take cognizance of the petition. This is not in dispute that at the time of the original complaint being decided, Azamgarh District Consumer Forum had not come into being. It means that the District Forum, Gorakhpur was fully competent to take cognizance of the consumer dispute raised by the respondent/complainant before it and certainly it had legal competence to finally determine the dispute. It is a long drawn view and a settled law that a Court/forum having jurisdiction to decide a case is fully competent to entertain its execution application. Even if the Azamgarh District Forum, had come into being before filing the execution petition, the District Consumer Forum, Gorakhpur was competent and legally entitled to entertain and proceed with the execution petition.

A perusal of the impugned order appears to indicate that the appeal against the original judgment passed in the complaint of the respondent was pending in this Commission at the relevant time of the impugned order having been issued but it was eventually dismissed in default, although it had traversed through a chequered path of the dispute having gone up to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission where the revision was filed by the respondent/complainant against this Commission''s judgment by virtue of which the appeal had been dismissed on merit.

ALTHOUGH vide order passed in the revision filed before the NCDRC, this Commission was asked to hear the dispute again and decide the same on merit, yet since none had appeared to press and prosecute the said appeal, it was dismissed for non-prosecution in the year 1992 itself (as informed by the appellant''s Counsel ). Now without taking recourse to the technical pleas and hurdles like that of jurisdiction, it would be fair and in the fitness of things that all concerned must submit to the jurisdiction of the Gorakhpur District Forum- the Fora which is still seized of the execution application.

HAVING regard to all what has been said above, we dispose of this appeal with the direction to the appellant to contest the execution petition pending before the District Consumer Forum, Gorakhpur. Appeal disposed of.