District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Hooghly
CC OF 2021
PETITIONER
VS.
OPPOSITE PARTY
Complaint Case No.CC/63/2020
(Date of Filing:-09.10.2020)
Sri Samarendra Nath Chatterjee
262, S.S. Bose Sarani, P.O. Baidyabati, P.S. Serampore,
District Hooghly,Pin:- 712222………Complainant
- Sri Ajoy Das, Village:- Hattala, Khanyan, P.O. Itachuna, P.S. Pundooah District:- Hooghly, Pin-712147
- Sri Amal alias Pradeep Mondal, Village:-Gurjala, Khanyan, P.O. Itachuna, P.S. Pundooah, District:- Hooghly
…..opposite parties
Before:-
Mr. Debasish Bandyopadhyay, President
Mrs. Minakshi Chakraborty, Member
Mr. Debasis Bhattacharya, Member
PRESENT:
Dtd. 31. 01. 2023
Final Order/Judgment
Debasis Bhattacharya:- PRESIDING MEMBER
The instant case filed under section 35 of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 originates from the grievances of the complainant in the matter of remitting an amount of Rs.1,46,539/-to the opposite parties as mentioned in the heading of this order against purchase of materials and labour charges involved in construction of a tin shade on the rooftop of his residence and defective execution of the said contract in spite of repeated persuasion.
Filtering out the unnecessary and somewhat irrelevant details incorporated in the complainant petition the complainant’s case may be summarized as follows.
The complainant verbally asked the OP 1 who was a known person to him and who claimed to be efficient in constructing of tin shade, to raise a tin shade on the rooftop of his residence.
Right from the placing of such order for constructing a tin shade as mentioned above, reportedly there was a series of events which is depicted below in chronological order as stated by the complainant.
- 23.12.18:- OP 1 and 2 inspected the roof and gave an estimate of Rs.1.5 lakh. On demand the complainant paid Rs. 5000/- as advance to the OP 1.
- 30.12.18:- Complainant and OP purchased required materials worth Rs.27,563/- from Sheorafuli market.
- 31.12.18:- OP started work and continued work till 04.01.19.
- 04.01.19:- Op 1 took Rs.50000/- more from the complainant and stated that the work would be completed within a day or two. At that juncture only, the complainant inspected his roof and was ‘shocked’ to find that the work was almost completed but the height of the shade was only about six feet. On measurement it was found that the height was actually less than six feet. On being grilled the OP 1 committed to rectify the work by increasing the height of the shade and promised also that no further amount was to be paid for such rectification.
- 05.01.19:- OP 1 demanded Rs.1000/- more from the complainant deviating from his earlier stand. However, after substantial arguments, the amount was paid by the complainant for purchasing certain materials.
- 06.01.19:- From this date, work was stopped and no contact could be made with the OP.
- After fifteen days, OP 1 appeared again and assigned personal reason for such break of work. He was desirous to start work again and consequent upon the same material worth Rs.29,119/- were further purchased. But OP 1 again stopped work and disappeared for five days.
- 26.01.19:- OP 1 again appeared, started work and continued work at a stretch for three days.
Now it would be superfluous to further describe this long continuing hide and seek game as alleged by the complainant. However, in a nutshell it may be stated that there were allegedly repeated interruptions, repeated appearance and disappearance of OP and finally the execution of the works contract was left incomplete as well as defective.
Reportedly, exercises to make contact with the OP went futile and no response to the legal notice sent to the OP was received by the complainant.
The complainant thus approached to this Commission with a prayer to impose direction upon the opposite party to make refund of the amount of Rs.1,46,539/-purportedly paid to the opposite party against the proposed construction of the tin shade, with interest @12%, to pay Rs.2,00,000/- as compensation for mental pain and agony and Rs.20,000/- as litigation cost.
The complainant further prays for imposing direction upon the OP to remove the incomplete and defective tin shade construction from his rooftop.
The complainant is a resident within the district of Hooghly. The claim preferred by the complainant does not exceed the limit of Rs.20,00,000/- Thus this Commission has territorial as well as pecuniary jurisdiction to proceed in the instant case.
Decision with reasons:- Before going into the merit of the case it will be worth mentioning that the opposite parties in course of proceedings of the instant case filed only a written version. Eventually the case ran ex parte against all the opposite parties.
OP 1 in his written version denies all the charges leveled against him and claims himself to be a poor labourer in the local grill shop of the complainant. He further claims that being under extreme pressure he was compelled to undertake the work and hire certain machineries from OP 2. OP 1 claims to have charged only labour charges.
Allegedly on completion of work, the complainant detained the machineries, assaulted OP 1 and other labourers and OP 1 fled away without receiving any payment.
OP 1 further alleges that on being threatened by musclemen and miscreants appointed by the complainant he again restored work but received no payment.
Materials on records are perused.
The glaring feature of the instant case is that these allegations and counter allegations are not substantiated by hard evidences.
The complainant claims to have made certain payments to the OP at different points of time. However, no authentic document in support of the financial transaction viz. money receipt/photocopy of any cheque could be filed.
Another queer aspect of the case is that the complainant did not feel it necessary to inspect the development of the work even on a single occasion during progress of the construction work. He visited the work site only when OP1 asked him to see the progress of the work and that is also making the purported payment of Rs.50,000/-.
Photo copies of certain advices related to purchases of materials have been filed but the same appear to be ‘Estimates’ only. Required ‘Tax invoices’ as stipulated under GST Act could not be filed.
In view of the above and on examination of available records it transpires that the complainant cannot be considered as a consumer as far as the provisions laid down under Section 2(7) (i) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 are concerned.
Thus, this Commission cannot find any cause of action for filing the present complaint by the present complainant.
Hence, it is
ORDERED
that the complaint case no.63/2020 be and the same is dismissed ex parte.
However there is no order as to costs.
Let a plain copy of this order be supplied free of cost to the parties/their Ld. Advocates/Agents on record by hand under proper acknowledgements/sent by ordinary post for information and necessary action.
