1.            The present revision petition is filed against the order dated 29.04.2016 of the State Commission in appeal no. 1655/2011 whereby the appeal of the petitioner was dismissed.  The appeal had been filed by the petitioner, who was the opposite party, against the order dated 08.08.2011 of the District Forum in Complaint no. 1017/2008.  While disposing of the matter, District Forum had issued the following directions:-

                                    ORDER

     Therefore the complaint of complainant is allowed and opponent is directed to allot a flat for Economical Weaker Section category flat comprised in 20.41 square meter in Malviya Nagar to the complainant at the prevailing rates in the financial year 1997-1998 within 2 months from the date of this order if it is not available in Malviya Nagar, Jaipur then the allotment has to be made in the Mansrovar, Jaipur in above manner.  The opponent is also liable to pay punitive damages of Rs.300,000/- which is to be recovered from the officer /any other negligent officer /employee of the opponent due to home house could not be allotted to complainant, out of this Rs.50,000/- shall be paid to complainant and the amount of Rs.250,000/- shall be deposited in the State Commission Welfare Fund and pay the amount of Rs.5000/- to complainant as litigation expenses.  The above amount has to be paid within 2 months from the date of this order.

2.          In appeal, however, the State Commission modified the directions issued by the District Forum and directed as under:

Therefore in our opinion there is no error committed by learned District Forum for coming to the conclusion that the complainant is entitled to flat of 20.41 square meters for Economically Weaker Section, however we amend the order of learned District Forum to the extent that the complainant be allotted flat at the rate prevailing in the year 2006 as all the registered applicants under this scheme were allotted flats till the year 2006, the appeal is disposed of with this amendment, the remaining order passed by learned District Forum is maintained except the above amendment.

3.          Aggrieved by these directions, the petitioner who was the opposite party before the District Forum has filed the present revision petition.

4.          We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

5.          The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner had taken a Special Registration Scheme, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur wherein the respondent/complainant got herself registered in the year 1986.  At the time of her registration it was promised to her that she will be allotted a house under EWS scheme on the basis of lottery system.  However no house was allotted to the complainant in the first lot.   She was informed that the remaining applicants would be allotted plots in the second lot.  However, she was again intimated that she was unsuccessful even in the second lottery held for allotment of plot. Thereafter she again submitted an application in the year 2006, but she was not allotted any house. On waiting for long when no allotment was done to her, she wrote several letters to the petitioner and those letters were not replied and no plot was allotted to her under the said scheme.

6.          Aggrieved by the act of the petitioner, she filed the complaint.  Notice of the complaint was issued to the petitioner and the petitioner did not appear before the District Forum and did not file any reply to the complaint.  The complainant led her evidences.  On the basis of uncontradicted testimony of the respondent/complainant, the District Forum has held as under:

8.  As far as question of deficiency in services is concerned, the complainant applied with the opponent under Economical Weaker Section category and deposited Rs.1000/-, she was registered under Special Registration Scheme 1986 4 house in Malviya Nagar scheme as per annexure-3.

9.  As per annexure-4, when application was submitted at that time ground floor area was 23.52 square meter and first floor area was 20.41 square meter and its cost was Rs.19,400/-, which is the estimated cost, when the complainant was not allotted any house than the complainant gave a notice to the opponent in reply of which the opponent demanded the complete details regarding registration with documents on dated 18.08.1984 and the complainant submitted these details with documents to the opponent thereafter vide annexrue-6 dated 26.10.2006 and vide annexure-7 dated 06.02.2008 again letters were written to President, the opponent in reply dated 15.03.2008 again demanded copy of all the documents related to the registration, but no action was taken by opponent, therefore the complaint issued a notice dated 14.07.2008 to the opponent, which is not replied by opponent till today.

10.   It is clear from the above entire discussion that the complainant applied under Economical Weaker Section category in Special Registration Scheme 1986 for Malviya Nagar, Jaipur by depositing Rs.1000/- with the opponent.  The complainant clearly stated that the other applicants were allotted flats in first lot, but complainant was not given then they assured to allot in second lot but not even provided in second lot whereas other applicants were allotted flats.  The opponent has not disclosed any reason for not allotting flat to complainant.  The opponent has not produced any such fact, therefore the complainant is not allotted any flat whereas other applicants were allotted flats, therefore not allotting the flat to complainant without any reason amounts to deficiency in service.

7.          In appeal the State Commission re-assessed and re-appreciated the only evidence on record i.e. of complainant and has held as under:

          In our view the arguments advanced by learned counsel for appellant are totally strange, the Housing Board has admitted that the complainant deposited the registration amount of rupees one thousand in the year 1986, the photo copy of same is Ext.1 to Ext.3 produced with complaint, Ext.4 is the advertiser meant published by Housing Board.  Now the question is that if the complainant has not enquired with the Housing Board for so many years than it cannot be interpreted that the Housing Board will not take any action regarding allotment of house to complainant, why the Housing board has not included her name in the lottery for so many years, why she was not issued notice to deposit said money, what was the position of her registration, what happened to her registration, the Housing Board failed to answer all these things because they have not filed their reply before Learned District Forum.  The complaint cannot be considered as affected due to limitation because the complainant made enquiry in the year 1994 in this regard, the Ext. 5 on record is the letter of Housing Board itself in which it was asked from the complainant that provide the details related to her registration.  Similarly when the complainant again issued a letter to Housing board in 2006, it was replied by the Housing board vide its letter dated 15.03.2008 Exhibit-9 stating that to submit all the documents related to her registration in the office, this letter dated 13.02.2008 was written by Housing board to complainant in reply to her letter. Therefore the complainant was enquiring in the year 1994, 2006 and 2008, it is surprising that despite registration the Housing board is not having any record related to her registration and they were asking the complainant to provide the registration details, produce the documents letters et cetera, the complainant has produced the registration receipt in this regard which is not disputed by Housing Board.  Therefore despite depositing the registration amount neither the name of complainant is included in any lottery nor any intimation in this regard ever provided.  The registered applicants under this scheme are allotted houses in first lot in the year 1993 and the remaining applicants were allotted houses in the year 2006.

8.          Vide the present revision petition, the petitioner has challenged the findings of the State Commission and has argued that the candidates who got registered under the scheme were much more in number than the available houses and therefore no house could be allotted under the scheme to the respondent / complainant.  It is further argued that the compensation is awarded towards higher side and that they cannot allot the house to the complainant now at the rate of the year 1994 or 1986 when the registration was done.

9.          Reliance is placed on Sumitra Madhukar Arsekar Vs. The Chairman, Goa Housing Board & Anr. (II 1995 CPJ 194 NC).

10.        Learned counsel for the respondent however brought to our attention para 3 of the revision petition and has argued that the arguments of learned counsel that houses booked were less in number than the candidates who had registered under scheme, is contrary to the contentions raised in the revision petition.  It is submitted that the petition is false and frivolous and is liable to be dismissed.  It is argued that in the light of these contentions, there is no perversity or illegality in the impugned order.

11.        Learned counsel for the petitioner however submits that the first allotment was conducted in the year 1993 and the second was done in the year 2006 and argued that in 2006 current market rate was charged towards the allotted houses.  Learned counsel for the respondent again submitted that the petitioner is making false statement since there is no document on record nor any evidence which could show that in the year 2006 and 1993 current market rate was charged from the successful candidates.  It is argued that the complainant shall not be burdened unnecessarily with the current rate of Housing board for no fault of her.

12.        From the perusal of file it is apparent that the complainant by her un-contradictory testimony has duly proves her contentions in the complaint.  The arguments on behalf of the petitioner - Housing board that the respondent remain unsuccessful in the allotments in draw of lots because the number of registered candidates were much more than the available houses, is meritless in view of their contention in para 3 of the revision petition.   The relevant para of the revision petition is reproduced as under:

          (iii)       That the petitioner allotted the flats/houses to the applicants of scheme through lottery system organized by petitioner in different lots from time to time under the scheme for Malviya Nagar, Jaipur and the respondent/applicant was not considered for the allotment as neither the respondent submitted any application form nor registered under the scheme and some of the applicants who could not get opportunity due to any technical grounds or any other reasons such as non-payment of seed-money or advance amount there were allotted flats in the later lottery draws held by the petitioner.  It is pertinent to mention here that maximum applicants of Malviya Nagar scheme were allotted flats in first draw except few who were accommodated later-on in forthcoming lottery draws.  It is further submitted that some of the EWs flats were sold out in open sale to the non-applicants of the scheme, as all the units were not sold out to the applicants of scheme who were less in number than the units available in scheme or due to technical faults on their part, as the petitioner board cannot withhold any unallotted/unsold unit with it for future therefore when all the eligible applicants were accommodated then the available units under the scheme were sold by the petitioner board in open sale inviting application from unregistered persons.

(emphasis ours)

13.        This fact clearly shows that the findings of the fora below cannot be found fault with. The opposite party is found guilty of deficiency in service. They fail to allot the house of the respondent / complainant despite the fact that there were more number of houses than the candidates and they chose to sell the houses in the open market to the non-applicants rather than allotting it to the registered candidates.  We do not find any perversity or illegality in the impugned order.  Even otherwise this Commission has very limited revisional jurisdiction. It is not required to re-assess or re-appreciate the evidences on record and substitute its own findings on facts.  Findings can be disturbed only when there is a perversity in the impugned order or there is any illegality.  It has been so held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in “Rubi (Chandra) Dutta Vs. United India Insurance Co. Ltd. – (2011) 11 SCC 269” which is as under:

“23. Also, it is to be noted that the revisional powers of the National Commission are derived from Section 21 (b) of the Act, under which the said power can be exercised only if there is some prima facie jurisdictional error appearing in the impugned order, and only then, may the same be set aside. In our considered opinion there was no jurisdictional error or miscarriage of justice, which could have warranted the National Commission to have taken a different view than what was taken by the two Forums. The decision of the National Commission rests not on the basis of some legal principle that was ignored by the Courts below, but on a different (and in our opinion, an erroneous) interpretation of the same set of facts. This is not the manner in which revisional powers should be invoked.  In this view of the matter, we are of the considered opinion that the jurisdiction conferred on the National Commission under Section 21 (b) of the Act has been transgressed. It was not a case where such a view could have been taken by setting aside the concurrent findings of two Fora”.

 14.        Again in “Lourdes Society Snehanjali Girls Hostel and Ors. Vs. H&R Johnson (India) Ltd. and others, (2016) 8 Supreme Court Cases 286,” the Hon’ble Supreme Court has reiterated the same principle and has held as under:

“17.  The National Commission has to exercise the jurisdiction vested in it only if the State Commission or the District Forum has either failed to exercise their jurisdiction or exercised when the same was not vested in them or exceeded their jurisdiction by acting illegally or with material irregularity.  In the instant case, the National Commission has certainly exceeded its jurisdiction by setting aside the concurrent finding of fact recorded in the order passed by the State Commission which is based upon valid and cogent reasons.”   

 15.        In T. Ramalingeswara Rao  (Dead) Through L.Rs. and Ors. Vs. N.Madhava Rao and Ors. decided on 05.04.2019 passed in Civil Appeal No. 3408 of 2019, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held as under:

“12.   When the two Courts below have recorded concurrent  findings of fact against the Plaintiffs, which are based on appreciation of facts and evidence, in our view, such findings being concurrent in nature are binding on the High court. It is only when such findings are found to be against any provision of law or against the pleading or evidence or are found to be perverse, a case for interference may call for by the High Court in its second appellate jurisdiction.”

16.  From the above discussion it is apparent that the petitioner is guilty of gross deficiency on its part.  It chose to sell the units in the open market rather than allotting it to the registered candidates.  The present revision petition has no merit and the same is dismissed with no order as to costs.