JUSTICE V.K. JAIN, PRESIDING MEMBER (ORAL)

          The complainants purchased five packets of seeds from opposite party no. 1, Surindra Beej Bhandar, vide invoice no. 225 dated 27.04.2010 for a sum of Rs. 10,975/-.  The seeds were sown by the complainant in his agriculture land in village Musa of District Mansa in Punjab.  The complainant claimed that despite his having spent huge amount and made best efforts, no flowers and fruits came from the said crop which almost went dead.  This, according to the complainant, happened due to wrong and spurious seeds.  The complaint with respect to damage to the crop was made by the complainant to the Chief Agriculture Officer, Mansa and on his instructions, Agriculture Officer, Mansa inspected the field of the complainant and submitted the report.  The gist of the said report was conveyed to the complainant by the Chief Agriculture Officer, on 16.02.2012.  The loss on account of lesser yield due to defective seeds was claimed to be Rs. 1,48,800/-, at the rate of Rs. 6,200/- per quintal, the total loss of the cotton being 24 quintals.  The complainant also claimed lease rent amounting to Rs. 16,000/-, Rs. 10,975/- as cost of seeds, Rs. 10,000/- for labour etc., compensation for mental agony amounting to Rs. 25,000/- and cost of litigation amounting to Rs. 6,000/-.

2.      The complaint was contested by the seller of the seeds, inter alia, on the ground that he had taken the seeds in sealed

packets from opposite party no. 2, Maha Gujarat Seeds Pvt. Ltd. and there were no defects in the seeds.  It was also stated in the reply of the opposite party no. 1 that the inspection was not carried out in his presence and the seeds had not got tested by opposite party no. 2 from Govt. Seeds Testing Laboratories, Maharashtra.  It was also claimed in the reply that loss in the yield could be due to several factors such as environment, lack of care and timely spray of insecticides and pesticides etc.  Opposite party no. 2 opposed the complaint, inter-alia, on the identical ground.  It was also claimed that seeds sold to the complainant was of best quality.

3.      Vide its order dated 08.06.2011, the District Forum directed both the opposite parties to pay a sum of Rs. 91,775/- to the complainant for the loss which he had suffered due to spurious quality of seeds.  Rs. 10,000/- was awarded to the complainant as compensation for mental tension, physical harassment etc. and Rs. 2,000/- as litigation expenses.  Being aggrieved from the order of the District Forum, both the opposite parties approached the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Punjab, by way of an appeal.  Vide impugned order dated 12.02.2014, the appeal filed by the petitioners was dismissed by the State Commission.  Being still

dissatisfied, the petitioners are before this Commission by way of this revision petition.

4.      A perusal of the order passed by the District Forum and the State Commission would show that on perusing the invoice issued to the complainant at the time of purchase of seeds by him, it was noticed that the first item in the bill Dhanwani-II of lot no. 2002 had expiry date of March, 2010, meaning thereby that expired seeds were sold to the complainant on 27.04.2010.  The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that in fact, the date 03/2010 noted in the invoice indicates the date of the test of the seed and not the expiry date of the seed.  I, however, find no merit in this contention.  A perusal of the invoice would show that in the column bearing the heading “Valid upto”, the month and year mentioned against items no. 1 to 5 were 03/2010, 12/2010, 11/2010, 01/2011 and 11/2011 respectively.  Since the invoice itself was of 27.04.2010, the aforesaid dates could not have been the testing dates of the seeds.  There could be no question of the seeds sold in April, 2010, having test report of December 2010, November 2010, January 2011 or November 2011.  Therefore, I see no merits in

the aforesaid contention and the same is accordingly rejected.

5.      The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that there was no complaint with respect to items no. 2 to 5 of the invoice dated 27.04.2010 and the order of the District Forum of the State Commission pertains only to the seeds of the variety Dhanwani-II, which was shown as item no. 1 in the invoice dated 27.04.2010.

6.      The report of the Agricultural Officer clearly shows the height of shrub was found to be less and there was no sufficient fruit on it.  It was also found by the Agricultural Officer that the yield from the field in which the seeds purchased by the complainants from opposite party no. 1 were sown was less than the yield expected from such seeds.  Though, it can hardly be disputed that lesser yield can be on account of several factors including environmental, negligence in watering the field in time and default in using the appropriate fertilizers and insecticides, there is no material from which it could be inferred that the complainant had not taken appropriate steps to water the field in time and had not used the insecticides and/or the fertilizers in appropriate quantity.  The petitioners have very conveniently not placed on

record the evidence filed by the complainant before the District Forum, which, inter-alia, include the affidavit of the complainant.  A perusal of the complaint would show that according to the complainant he had taken all necessary steps.

7.      A similar issue came up for consideration of this Commission in Revision Petition No. 384/2011, The District Manager, AP State Seeds Development Corporation & Anr. Vs. M. Madhusudhan Reddy & Anr., decided on 24.07.2014 and the following view taken by the Commission in this regard is relevant:-

          “(7)    Though, the case of APSSDC is that the crop failure can be attributed to several reasons such as poor crop management, including not using appropriate fertilizers and pesticides, failure to water the fields in time and damage caused by the pests, there is no evidence of any such possibility having actually arisen in this case.  There is no evidence of any drought in the area at the relevant time.  There is no evidence of any failure on the part of the complainant to manage the crop.  As rightly observed by the State Commission, a farmer purchasing and sowing seeds in his fields would take all possible care to ensure that there is

 no failure of the crop in his fields.  He would, therefore, not only use the fertilizers but also the necessary pesticides, besides watering them well in time.”

8.      More importantly, as far as the present case is concerned, the deficiency in the quality of the seeds is apparent from the fact that expired seeds were sold to the complainant by petitioner no. 2, Surindra Beej Bhandar.  In any case, a concurrent finding of fact regarding quality of the seeds purchased by the complainant has been returned by the District Forum and affirmed by the State Commission.  The scope of a revision petition is limited to ensure that the orders passed by the fora below is not without jurisdiction and does not suffer from any illegality.  The impugned order can not be said to be without jurisdiction nor can it be said to be illegal.  In the facts and circumstances of this case, it can not be said that no reasonable person, acting on the material available to him could have recorded the finding which the District Forum and the State Commission recorded in this case.  Therefore, the finding recorded by them can not be said to be perverse so as to call for interference in exercise of our revisional jurisdiction.

9.       For the reasons stated hereinabove, I find no merit in the revision petition and the same is hereby dismissed.