Complainant Bhupesh Kumar through the present complaint filed under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short, ‘the Act’) has prayed that opposite party may kindly be directed to deliver the registration certificate and directed to pay compensation amount of Rs.2,00,000/- along with interest for harassment & mental agony suffered by him at the hands of opposite party including Rs.5,000/- as litigation expenses.
2. The case of the complainant in brief is that on 21.11.2015 he approached the show room of the opposite party and purchased the new car “Mahindera Bolero” after the invoice billing, which was mentioning the finance in the Bank of Punjab and Sind Bank and the complainant paid all the charges including the registration certificate on the same day. It was pleaded that after paying the entire amount of registration certificate the complainant after one month approached the opposite party and asked them to hand over the registration certificate but the opposite party is lingering on the matter and did not give any heed to the request of the complainant. Complainant purchased the above said vehicle from the opposite party and paying the entire amount, get the service of the opposite party and as such he is the consumer of the opposite party. It was further pleaded that on 28.03.2016 vehicle of the complainant was bound by the DTO Gurdaspur due to non registration certificate and challan was also made to the vehicle and fine of Rs.5,000/- was also imposed upon the complainant due to the lack of above said document. It was also pleaded that complainant had paid all the entire amount including the registration certificate to the opposite party but the opposite party had failed to hand over registration certificate to the complainant. It was next pleaded that after getting the challan complainant approached the opposite party number of times and requested them to handover the registration certificate (R.C.) of the vehicle but the opposite party had failed to deliver the same to him due to which he was unable to ply the vehicle on the road. It was pleaded that due to the above said act and conduct of the opposite party there is deficiency in service and unfair trade practice on their part which cover under the Consumer Protection Act and as such complainant had suffered from financial loss, mental tension and harassment, hence this complaint.
3. Notice of the complaint was served upon the opposite party who appeared and filed their written reply stating therein that the complainant i.e. M/s Bhupesh traders purchased bolero pick up on 19.11.2015 and made the payment of Rs.5,93,248/- on 21.11.2015 by way of draft. It was stated that complainant had also made additional payment of Rs.18,750/- towards insurance and temporary number etc. which was issued to him as PB-35U-1198 and the same was valid for one month from the date of purchase. It was further stated that complainant had applied for permanent registration number but the opposite party is not competent for the registration of commercial vehicle and complainant had to apply directly to the concerned authority but he did not do and continuously plied the vehicle without document. It was also stated that complainant approached to person to assist him but he did not hand over the related document (form cfx, form 20) on which chassis had to traced and he produced the document only when his vehicle was challan and after that he brought the matter to the notice of the opposite party and opposite party immediately initiated the action and for the arrangement of the R.C. but complainant delayed to collect the same from them and instead of being thankful started using threatening language and putting the blame on them and asked for compensation. Lastly, opposite party prayed for dismissal of the complaint as there was the fault of the complainant who continued his vehicle without proper document.
4. Complainant had tendered into evidence his duly sworn affidavit Ex.C1 along with documents Ex.C2 to Ex.C7 and closed his evidence.
5. Sh.Kishore Vandotra G.M. of the opposite party had tendered into evidence his duly sworn affidavit Ex.OP-1 and closed the evidence on behalf of opposite party.
6. We have carefully examined all the documents/evidence as available on the complaint records (as duly produced forth by both the litigants) along with the scope of the adverse inference that may be judicially but discretionarily drawn on account of the intentional non-production of some of the documents vital for the adjudication of the present dispute in question; of course, in the very back-drop of arguments as put forth by the learned counsels for the two sides.
We find that the present dispute has resulted on account of non-delivery of the sold vehicle’s permanent Registration Certificate to the complainant as per the assurance and promise made by the opposite party vendor at the time of the Sale. The complainant has alleged in his complaint that he had paid Rs.18,750/- to the vendor for Vehicle’s RC besides paying a sum of Rs.5,93,248/- as purchase price of the vehicle in question; whereas the OP vendor claims that Rs.18,750/- were for insurance purposes of the vehicle and the temporary RC valid for one month was duly delivered along with the vehicle and the permanent RC of commercial vehicles has to be arranged by the customer purchaser himself. The insurance certificate and temporary RC proves the OP’s claim.
8. We find that the complainant has failed to prove his allegation of payment for the permanent RC of the vehicle to the OP vendor through some cogent evidence and moreover it has been a settled norm that RC of non-commercial (private) vehicles are arranged by the vendors for their customer purchasers whereas the commercial vehicle owners themselves arrange for their permanent RCs. Thus, the complainant’s prime and lone allegation stands ‘not-proved’.
9. In the light of the all above, we do not find the hue of actionable merit (under the Act) in the present complaint and thus ORDER for its dismissal with however no orders as to its costs.
10. Copy of the order be communicated to the parties free of charges. After compliance, file be consigned to records.
(Naveen Puri)
President.
ANNOUNCED: (Jagdeep Kaur)
OCT. 27, 2016 Member.
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