Punjab

Faridkot

CC/16/105

Naunihal Singh - Complainant(s)

Versus

Green Star Dhaba - Opp.Party(s)

Jaswant Singh

18 Oct 2016

ORDER

DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, FARIDKOT

 

Complaint No. :       105

Date of Institution:   26.04.2016

Date of Decision :     18.10.2016

 

Naunihal Singh s/o Gurnam Singh aged about 25 years, r/o Village Deep Singh Wala, District Faridkot.

...Complainant

Versus

1. Green Star Dhaba, Opposite Fun Plaza, Moga, Kotkapura Road, District Faridkot through its Manager/owner.

2. Civil Surgeon, Civil Hospital, Faridkot.....OPs

    

   Complaint under Section 12 of the

   Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

    

   Quorum:     Sh Ajit Aggarwal, President,

   Sh P Singla, Member.

    

   Present:       Sh Jaswant Singh, Ld Counsel for complainant,    

                     Sh Mandeep Dhingra, Ld Counsel for OP-1,

                      OP- 2 Exparte,

    

    (Ajit Aggarwal, President)

                                   Complainant has filed the present complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 against Ops seeking directions to OP-1 to pay Rs.70,000/- as compensation for deficiency in service and for causing mental agony and harassment to complainant and for directing OP-2 to take action against restaurants/dhabas and hotels, who provide unsafe water to customers.

   2                                           Briefly stated, the case of the complainant is that on 5.02.2016 at  about 8.00 pm, complainant went to Green Star Dhaba of OP-1, where employees of OP-1 served poor quality of water, which was polluted and was not fit for human consumption. Complainant asked the employees of OP-1 to provide fresh water, but instead of giving fresh water to complainant, they compelled him to purchase bottled water from them and even refused to take his own water, which was with him. Despite repeated requests made by complainant, OP-1 misbehaved with complainant without any reason and rejected the genuine demand made by complainant. All this act and conduct of OP-1 amounts to deficiency in service and has caused harassment and mental tension to complainant. Complainant also served legal notice to OP-1 but to no effect. All this amounts to deficiency in service and trade mal practice on the part of Ops and has caused harassment and mental agony to complainant for which he is entitled for compensation and litigation expenses besides main relief. Hence, the complaint.

   3                                        The Counsel for complainant was heard with regard to admission of the complaint and vide order dated 4.05.2016, complaint was admitted and notice was ordered to be issued to the opposite party.

4                                  On receipt of notice, OP-1 filed reply taking preliminary objections that complaint in hand is not maintainable in the present form and is liable to be dismissed. It is averred that complainant has no locus standi to file the same as bill produced by complainant is without any date and complainant has not come to this Forum with clean hands and has also concealed the real facts from this Forum. It is further averred that OP is a vegetarian dhaba and has good reputation in the eyes of nearby local area. Real facts of the complaint are that the complainant was accompanied by some persons and they demanded water for taking liquor, which was not allowed at the place of answering OP and when OP stopped them for taking liquor at his place, then, complainant and the persons who accompanied him started raising quarrel with proprietor of OP and they also used rude and abusive language towards him and when they stopped him from using such language, then, complainant and his party started threatening answering OP that they would teach him a lesson. It is submitted that answering OP provide every facility to its customers to their satisfaction and even a water purifier is also installed at the eating place of answering OP and even reports of samples of water taken from the dhaba of answering OP by Health Department are found satisfactory for human consumption. It is further submitted that Police Patrolling Party has been visiting the dhaba of answering OP for many years, but they have found no fault or any irregularity in the functioning of dhaba of answering OP. Complainant has filed this complaint with malafide intention to extract money from him. Complainant has falsely dragged him in present litigation and story made by complainant is concocted and false one. On merits also, complainant has denied all the allegations of complainant and reiterated that there is no deficiency in service on the part of OP and has prayed for dismissal of complaint with costs.

5                                     Notice containing copy of complaint was served to OP-2 through Process Server, but despite effective service, nobody appeared in the Forum on date fixed on behalf of OP-2 either in person or through counsel and then after long waiting till 4.00 pm, OP-2 was proceeded against exparte vide order dated 9.06.2016

6                           Parties were given proper opportunities to prove their respective case. The complainant tendered in evidence his affidavit Ex.C-1, supplementary affidavit Ex C-6, affidavit of Rajinder Singh as Ex C-7 and documents Ex C-2 to C-5 and then, closed the evidence.

7                                     In order to rebut the evidence of the complainant, ld Counsel for OP-1 tendered in evidence affidavit of Honey Rajput as Ex OP-1, documents Ex OP-2 to 6, affidavit of Sh Teerath Pal Ex OP-7, affidavit of Sh Ashish Kumar Ex OP-8, affidavit of Sh Gurcharan Singh Ex OP-9 and then, closed the evidence.

8                           We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have very carefully gone through the affidavits and documents placed on the record file.

9                              Ld Counsel for complainant argued that on 5.02.2016 at  about 8.00 pm, complainant went to Green Star Dhaba of OP-1, where employees of OP-1 served poor quality of water, which was polluted and was not fit for human consumption. Complainant asked the employees of OP-1 to provide fresh water, but instead of giving fresh water to complainant, they compelled him to purchase bottled water from them and even did not allow him to take his own water that was with him. Despite repeated requests made by complainant to provide fresh water, OP-1 misbehaved with complainant without any reason and rejected the genuine demand made by complainant. All this act and conduct of OP-1 amounts to deficiency in service and has caused harassment and mental tension to complainant. Complainant also served legal notice to OP-1 but that also bore no fruit. He has prayed for accepting the present complaint and stressed on documents Ex C-1 to 7.

10                         To controvert the allegations of complainant, ld counsel for OP-1 asserted that complaint in hand is not maintainable in the present form and is liable to be dismissed. It is further averred that complainant has no locus standi to file the same as bill produced by complainant is without any date and complainant has not come to this Forum with clean hands and has also concealed the real facts from this Forum. It is further averred that OP is a vegetarian dhaba and has good reputation in nearby local area. It is further averred that on alleged date, complainant was accompanied by some persons and they demanded water for taking liquor, which was not allowed at the place of answering OP and when OP stopped them for taking liquor at his place, then, complainant and the persons who accompanied him, started raising quarrel with proprietor of OP and they also used rude and abusive language towards him and when they stopped him from using such language, then, complainant and his party started threatening answering OP that they would teach him a lesson. It is submitted that answering OP provide every facility to its customers as per their satisfaction and even a water purifier is also installed at the eating place of answering OP and even reports of samples of water taken from the dhaba of answering OP by Health Department, are found satisfactory for human consumption. It is further submitted that Police Patrolling Party has been visiting the dhaba of answering OP for many years and they have found no fault or any irregularity in the functioning of OP. Complainant has filed this complaint with malafide intention to extract money from him. Complainant has falsely dragged him in present litigation and story made by complainant is concocted and false one. It is reiterated that there is no deficiency in service on the part of OP and prayer for dismissal of complaint is made.

11                         From the above discussion, it is made out that main contention of complainant is that OP did not provide safe drinking water to them after food, but OP assert that they provide good quality water to them as they have installed Reverse Osmosis System at his resort. To prove his pleadings, complainant has stressed on bill Ex C-2 and legal notice issued by him through counsel as Ex C-3. With the help of document Ex C-7, which is the affidavit of one Rajinder Singh son of Jaswant Singh, complainant has tried to refute the allegations and plea taken by OP-1 to escape the charges levelled by them on complainant. In Ex C-7, it is clearly written that complainant is a vegetarian person and he is not in habit of taking liquor. He is a pure vegetarian and he never uses egg, flesh or wine as he is very religious person. Thus, even it can not be presumed that a person of religious nature has ever sought water for taking liquour from a dhaba. On the other hand, OP-1 has not produced cogent and sufficient evidence to controvert the allegations of complainant. Therefore, we are of considered opinion that there is a deficiency in service on the part of OP-1 in not providing fresh water to complainant. It is the prime duty of every eating place or dhaba or hotel to provide fresh, safe and good quality water to its customers, but instead of admitting his fault, OP-1 has levelled false allegation on complainant, which is totally wrong and illegal. Hence, complaint in hand is hereby allowed with direction to OP-1 to provide safe, fresh,  clean and  good quality of water to its customers. OP-1 is further directed to pay Rs.5,000/- as compensation for harassment and Rs.2,000/-as litigation expenses to complainant. OP-2/Civil Surgeon, Faridkot is also directed to make periodic checks on the dhabas, resorts or eating places working within the jurisdiction of Faridkot and make sure that only fresh, safe, clean and good quality of water is being supplied to people and to take action against those, who do not provide fresh water to its customers. Compliance of this order be made by parties within one month of receipt of the copy of the order, failing which complainant shall be at liberty to proceed under Section 25 and 27 of the Consumer Protection Act. Copy of the order be supplied to parties free of costs as per law. File be consigned to record room.

Announced in open Forum:

  Dated: 18.10.2016                         

  

Member                         President                  (P Singla)                                (Ajit Aggarwal)