Per Justice Mr. S.B. Mhase, Hon’ble President :
Heard. This appeal is directed as against the order dated 30.09.2010 passed in consumer complaint No. 260/2009 by the South Mumbai District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Mumbai. The complaint which was filed by the appellant/original complainant is dismissed by the said order.
2. There is partnership account in the name of Smex Overseas. The said account was being operated by two partners of the said firm viz. Amar Parsram Rohira, the complainant and Kishor Parsram Rohira. Both are brothers. Accordingly, account operating instructions were given to the opponent bank. Said partnership was dissolved on 31.3.2000. However, the fact that the said partnership dissolved, was not informed to the opponent for a period of 3 years. Thereafter, also dissolution of the firm was not informed but it was only informed that the account will be operated by the complainant only. Said intimation was signed by both the partners. Therefore, bank was left under impression that the partnership account is to be operated by one of the partners instead of both the partners as it was earlier operated. However, the other brother found it fit to inform the bank about dissolution of the partnership and requested the bank to stop operation of partnership account and accordingly, bank has stopped its operation. The complainant felt aggrieved by this and therefore, filed the consumer complaint. The facts are self-explanatory and no further explanation and comments are necessary because after dissolution of the partnership, both the partners were under obligation to inform the bank that the partnership has been dissolved. They have suppressed this information from the bank. At the later stage when it was informed to the bank by other partner and also taking objection to continue the operation of the account, the service withheld by the bank. We do not find any deficiency in service on the part of the bank and even the District Forum has also found that there is no deficiency in service on part of the bank. In fact, it is dispute between the partners who are the real brothers. However, they want to get resolve their dispute dragging the bank into it instead of directly resolving their dispute by taking appropriate accounts of the partnership by filing a suit. We do not know whether the partnership is registered or not. Probably, it may be un-registered partnership and therefore, suit may not be maintainable under section 69 of the Partnership Act and therefore, to overcome such situation, the deficiency of service is alleged against the bank. Whatever may be the situation, even if partnership is registered, appropriate way is to file suit and get the account settled. Therefore, instead of following proper legal remedies for the settlement of the accounts, operation of accounts, the complainants themselves found an innovative way to get dispute resolved. Hence the consumer complaint itself is malafide. What we find that this is a case not simplicitor for dismissal of the complaint but to do something for abuse of process of consumer fora by making false allegation against the bankers. Hence some token penalties required to be imposed.
3. Thus, we maintain the order passed by the District Forum dismissing the consumer complaint.
4. The appellant to bear its own costs and do pay costs of `1000/- to the respondent as compensation for invalid complaint against HDFC Bank.
Pronounced dated 3rd October 2011.
