Date of Filing – 13.01.2015

Date of Hearing – 08.11.2017

            The challenge in this appeal under Section 15 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) is to the Judgement/Final Order dated 27.10.2014 passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, North 24 Parganas at Barasat (in short, Ld. District Forum) in Consumer Complaint No. 147/2014 whereby the petition of complaint lodged by the Complainant Sri Anil Chandra Das was dismissed on contest with an observation that the complaint is barred by limitation.

          The Appellant herein being Complainant lodged the complaint asserting that being a bonafide consumer of OP/Bank, he took OD Loan as well as personal loan being Nos.OD237 & PN60402 at the time of sanctioning of those two loans, the OP Bank took two fixed deposit certificates as security in OD Loan No.DD237 and the OP further took six numbers of fixed deposit certificates as security in Personal Loan Account No.PN60402 against which he filed one case being CC/125/2012 which is awaiting disposal.  The complainant alleged that he was going on paying the instalment of loan regularly and found that an excess amount of Rs.2,00,000/- was realised by OP Bank.  The complainant approached the Manager on several occasions but his requests for refund of excess money was not adhered to.  Hence, the complainant approached the Ld. District Forum with prayer for a direction upon the OP to furnish the statement of account of OD A/C No.OD237 & PN60402, compensation of Rs.2,00,000/- etc.

          The Respondent herein being OP by filing a written version has admitted that the complainant availed the said two loans but the loan account has been closed long before in the year 2005 and as such it is barred by limitation.

          After assessing the materials on record, the Ld. District Forum by the impugned order dismissed the complaint on the ground that it was barred by limitation.  To assail the said order, the Complinant has come up in this Commission with the present appeal.

          I have heard the Ld. Advocates appearing for the parties and perused the materials on record.

          The evidence on record goes to show that on 27.08.2004 the appellant obtained a loan of Rs.1,25,000/- with an interest @ 12.5% p.a. from the period of 9 months and for that purpose he kept some fixed deposits with the OP Bank.  Therefore, the 9 months of repayment was expired on 26.05.2005 and the instant complaint was lodged before the Ld. District Forum on 24.03.2014.

For appreciation of the dispute, it would be worthwhile to reproduce the provisions of Section 24A of the Act which runs as follows:

“24A. Limitation period:- (1) The District Forum, the State Commission or the National Commission shall not admit a complaint unless it is filed within  two years from the date on which the cause of action has arisen. 

(2) Notwithstanding anything contend in sub-section(1) a complaint may be entertained after the period specified in sub-section (1), if the complainant satisfies the District Forum, the State Commission or the National Commission, as the case may be, that he had sufficient cause for not filing the complaint within such period.

Provided that no such complaint shall be entertained unless the National Commission, the State Commission or the District Forum, as the case may be records its reasons for condoning such delay”.

          The above provisions is clearly peremptory and mandatory in nature requiring the Consumer Fora to see at the time of entertaining the complaint, whether it has been within the stipulated period of two years from the date of cause of action.  In a decision reported in 2009 (4) CPR 17 (Kandimalla Raghavaiah & Co. – vs. – National Insurance Co. Ltd. & Anr.) the Hon’ble Supreme Court after adopting the view of the observations of the Hon’ble Apex Court reported in 2009 (3) CPR 107 (State Bank of India –vs- B.S. Agricultural Industries) has observed – “As a matter of law, the Consumer Forum must deal with the complaint on merits only if the complaint has been filed within two years from the date of accrual of cause of action and if beyond the said period, the sufficient cause has been shown and delay condoned for the reasons recorded in writing.  In other words, it is the duty of the Consumer Forum to take notice of Section 24A and give effect to it.  If the complaint is barred by time and yet, the Consumer Forum decides the complaint on merits, the Forum would be committing an illegality and, therefore, the aggrieved party would be entitled to have such order set aside”.

          The appellant approached the Ld. District Forum after long 7 years from the date accrual cause of action, which in my view is 26.05.2007 i.e. within two years from the date of expiry of period of repayment of monthly instalment.  The appellant did not make any prayer before the Ld. District Forum for the condonation of delay.  Therefore, I do not find any infirmity or shortcoming in passing the order impugned.

          Consequently, the appeal is dismissed on contest.  However, there will be no order as to costs.

          The impugned Judgement/Final Order is hereby affirmed.

          The Registrar of this Commission is directed to send a copy of this order to the Ld. District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, North 24 Parganas at Barasat for information.