Case No.84/23

20.04.2023

Present:        Adv. Vidit Sinh Chouhan for complainant.

The present complaint has been filed by two complainants. Complainant No.1 being PhD student doing her PhD in International Relations whereas Complainant No.2 is employed with the British Museum. It is stated by the Complainants that they had booked commercial unit in the commercial project ‘M3M’ International Financial Centre and that they have not yet been allotted commercial unit.

When the case came up for admission hearing, the counsel for complainant was provided time to convince the Commission as to how the present matter is triable by this Commission as the matter pertains to Commercial space being taken by the Complainants. It was sought to be explained that how the complainants have taken the property for ‘personal use’ and as to how the agreement has not been signed by the parties.

The matter then came up on 12.04.2023 where the counsel for complainant insisted that the matter should be admitted as it was filed more than 21 days ago. However, it was made clear to him that since the Commission had raised queries which the counsel had to provide answers therefore the matter cannot be admitted automatically within the stipulated period of 21 days.

Section 2(7) of the Act defines a consumer and does not include a person who obtains the goods or services for any commercial purpose.

(7) "consumer" means any person who—

(i) buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and ……..but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or for any commercial purpose; or

(ii) hires or avails of any service for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and ………but does not include a person who avails of such service for any commercial purpose.

Explanation.—For the purposes of this clause,—

(a) the expression "commercial purpose" does not include use by a person of goods bought and used by him exclusively for the purpose of earning his livelihood, by means of self-employment;

The Hon’ble NCDRC in Balbir Singh Randhawa Vs DLF Universal CC No.402/2016 upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal  no.16686 of 2016 held that complainant has availed of services of OP in relation to a commercial purpose therefore, he is not covered under the definition of consumer and as such complainant cannot maintain the consumer complaint.

In Smt. Shikha Birla Vs DLF Retailers Developers CC No.183/2012 upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No. 114329 of 2013 it was held that complainant has not placed any pleadings or evidence to show that the shop purchased by her is exclusively for the purpose of livelihood, by means of self-employment and accordingly dismissed the complaint.

In Puneet Singh vs Aerens Entertainment Zone Pvt Ltd CC 1069/2015, the Hon’ble NCDRC held that complainant was working at the time of booking the commercial premises and therefore, the complainant could not be considered to be a consumer.

In Sunil Kohli vs. M/s. Purearth Infrastructure Ltd. (Civil Appeals 9004-9005 of 2018), decided on 01.10.2019 Referring to Section 2(1)(d)(i) of the Act and also the judgments in Laxmi Engineering Works v. P.S.G. Industrial Institute, (1995) 3 SCC 583 and Cheema Engineering Services v. Rajan Singh, (1997) 1 SCC 131, the bench observed that the explanation to Section 2(1)(d) of the Act clarifies that “in certain situations, purchase of goods for “commercial purpose” would not yet take the purchaser out of the definition of expression ‘consumer’ if the commercial use is by the purchaser himself for the purpose of earning his livelihood by means of self-employment, such purchaser of goods is a ‘consumer’ and what would constitute a “Commercial Purpose” is a question of fact to be decided in the facts of each case.

In the present case, an opportunity was provided to the counsel for complainants to show any document as to how the said property was to be used for their personal use but no such pleading/document was forthcoming. Therefore, this Commission is of the view that this matter being commercial in nature cannot be entertained by this Commission. It is accordingly dismissed.