Per Mr.S.R.Khanzode, Hon’ble Presiding Judicial Member
Heard Mrs.Premlata Modani-Advocate for the appellant and Mr.Ashutosh Marathe-Advocate for the respondent.
Admit and heard forthwith with consent of both the parties.
This appeal takes an exception to an order dated 13/10/2010 passed in consumer complaint no.731/2008, Consumer Welfare Association and another v/s. Manager HSBC Centralised Retail Assets Processing, Mumbai 64; by Mumbai Suburban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum at Bandra (‘forum’ in short). Alleged deficiency in service against the Financial institution is about taking insurance covering the loan and paying the entire premium in lump sum and once the amount of Housing loan was paid prematurely, not returning the mortgage deed. It is now submitted at Bar that mortgage deed is since then returned and the grievance thereof is no more alive. The consumer complaint stood dismissed and feeling aggrieved thereby, original complainant preferred this appeal.
In the instant case, as far as taking insurance policy and making payment of the premium in lump sum is concerned, it is criticized as an ‘unfair act’ on the part of lending institution by the complainant. In this background it would be proper to refer to letter dated 10/03/2007 whereby lending institution, namely, HSBC bank informed to the borrower i.e.complainant no.2 that one of the conditions of the sanction of the loan is that, “Creating such security as may be required by HSBC from time to time”. Borrowers acted on that. Thereafter borrowers gave Declaration cum authorization in favour of lending institution, whereby they specifically agreed and authorized HSBC bank to arrange to obtain an insurance policy in the name of principle borrower. Accordingly, insurance policy was taken and the premium paid from time to time were debited in the loan account. Therefore, in view of such contractual obligation between the party taking the insurance policy and paying the premium even though in lump sum, as agreed, covering entire period of loan cannot be faulted with and, certainly, it is neither an unfair trade practice nor will amount to any deficiency in service on the part of lending institution. When such insurance policy was taken, it was never conceived that the loan would be paid prematurely at the discretion by the borrowers. Therefore after paying such amount prematurely and closing the loan account, the amount of `99,928.38 ps. were still remain due and such statement is made by the opponent in their written version too. It is submitted on behalf of the Ld.counsel for the appellant that even those dues are not paid. This statement goes undisputed by the respondent. Whatever may be in these circumstances, settlement of the amount since cannot be a consumer dispute, the complaint itself could not be entertained as a consumer dispute.
Furthermore, loan account is to be settled or any grievance thereof is to be settled with the lending institution, namely, HSBC Bank. Said bank is not a party to the consumer complaint. ‘Manager’ of HSBC Bank who is a separate and distinct juridic person as per provisions of section 2(1)(m) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, is certainly not a ‘service provider’ in the background of the present case.
For the reasons stated above, we find ultimate dismissal of consumer complaint by the forum cannot be faulted with. Thus, finding appeal devoid of any substance, we pass the following order:-
ORDER
Appeal stands dismissed.
In the given circumstances both the parties to bear their own costs.
Copies of the order be furnished to the parties.
Pronounced on 12th October, 2011.
