Complainant Rajinder Kaur has filed the present complaint against the opposite party U/S 35 of the Consumer Protection Act (for short, C.P.Act.) and prayed for necessary directions to the opposite party to refund the amount of Rs.20,00,000/- alongwith interest from the date of deposit till the realization of the amount alongwith Rs.50,000/- as compensation for causing mental agony and harassment and Rs.20,000/- as litigation expenses to her, in the interest of justice.
2. The case of the complainant in brief is that she is a senior citizen and resident of HNo.544, Mohalla Dashmesh Nagar (Abadi Kutbi Nangal) Kala Nangal Rad, Batala, District Gurdaspur. It was pleaded that opposite party is a company carrying on the real estate business of buying, selling, renting and operating of self-owned or leased real estate such as apartment building and dwellings, non-residential buildings, developing real estate into plots etc. and opposite party has offices all over India and in Punjab having branch offices in Abhohar, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Batala in District Gurdaspur. It was further pleaded that opposite party had advertised availability of plots in Village Mehandwani, Tehsil Garhshankar, District Hoshiarpur, Punjab and allured by the picturesque projection, complainant booked a plot measuring 2 acres (43750 sq. ft) vide Ref Id-10036113, 10036114 which is situated at village Mehandwani, Tehsil Garhshankar, District Hoshiarpur comprised in Khasra No.158/196, 159/197, 160/198, 153/88, 715/967, 105/143, 456/648, 76112, 572/771, 51/83, 84,52,87,65, 65/100, 200/240, 241/95, 53/728, 552/447, 681/931, 37/562, 773/923, 22/29, 24/31, 28/38, 39/40, 249/321, 250/324, 265/361, 84/122, 37/49, 50,51,387/573, 389/576, 592/579, 74/110, 51/83, 51/84, 52/83, 59/94, 392/512, 74/107, 73/109, 78/114, 698/948, 623/849, 310/465, 666/467, 468/469, 470/27, Khasra No.531, 532, 536, 447, 813, 805, 19//103, 11//9/2, 19//1/1, 10/1, 32/52, 7//16/1, 787, 800, 22, 9/5, 12/2, 795, 797, 815, 817, 818, 20/17, 24/1, 803, 22/1/1, 777, 783 Min, 22/2, 9/3/1, 19//11/2, 897, 905, 822, Min, 7/1/2, 9/2/1, 443, 456, 467, 512, 516, 548, 549, 560, 562, 578, 579, 588, 597,598, 620, 623, 625, 834, 836, 640,742, 771, 1109, 1146, 595, 1060, 9/7/1, 13/7/2,104/2, 5/1, 10/8/2, 9/1, 12/1, 12/2, 13/1, 953, 954, 443, 456, 457, 512, 516, 548, 549, 560, 562, 578, 579, 588, 597, 598, 620, 623, 625, 634, 636, 640, 740, 722, 1109, 1146, 959, 1060, 705, 1105, 1112, 515, 987, 825, 824, 823, 21/5, 797, 816, 817, 818, 20/17, 24/1, 21/4, 22/19/4, 20/18/1, 23/2, 21/3/2, 22/10, 20/42/2, 819, 829, 20//23/1, 24/3, 1056, 21/3/1, 20/25/1, 21/5/1, 19/21, 21/2, 20/25/2, 19/8/1, 26//14/2, 436, 437, 439, 440, 441, 458, 461, 465, 486, 465, 1119, 1141, 1129, 1130, 1123, 1122, 486 Min, 508, 521, 522, 493, 448, 654, 679, 656, 660, 901, 902, 903, 904, 904, 907, 908, 914, 1131, 641, 750, 705, 542, 520, 542, 509, 492, 498, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 540, 526, 1132, 539, 543, 491, 448, 593, 504, 596, 742, 451, 805, 583, 872, 537, 1021, 547, 513, for a total sale price of Rs.20,00,000/- (Twenty Lacs). It was also pleaded that on 26.06.2012 complainant deposited full and final payment of Rs.20,00,000/- with the opposite party having its office at Batala and opposite party entered into agreement of sale with the complainant on 31.07.2012 which was handed over to the complainant and vide this agreement, it was agreed by the opposite party that the purchaser is at liberty to get the sale deed registered at any time as per availability of directors. It was also agreed that on completion of sale price, the opposite party would execute sale deed in favour of the complainant after passing of 3 months period to enable the company to scrutinize the entire account and was also agreed that opposite party would obtain all kinds of NOC, permissions and other clearances during this time and was also that the opposite party shall pay Rs.12,500/- per acre per month as farm rent (Theka) contract to the complainant. Rent at the rate of Rs.25,000/- each paid to the complainant by the opposite party since 2014 vide cheques dated 26.07.2014, 26.08.2014, 26.09.2014, 26.10.2014, 26.11.2014 till 26.06.2015 of Punjab National Bank, Abohar but after that payment of farm rent was stopped by the opposite party and on the asking of stoppage of farm rent payment by the complainant opposite party started giving lame excuses and directed the complainant to wait for some time. Complainant also made request to the opposite party for execution of the sale deed in her favour as she had paid full amount and nothing was due but the opposite party linger on the matter with one pretext or the other. It was next pleaded that after receiving the full and final consideration of Rs.20,00,000/- from the complainant, sale deed of above said plot measuring 2 acres (43750 sq. ft.) was not executed by the opposite party in favour of the complainant nor delivered the possession of the plot and duped the complainant and so many other buyers of crores of rupees and now fled away. Opposite party had not refunded the amount of the complainant and swindled her hard earned money and have defrauded her and many other customers on the fake promise of delivering the possession of plots to them. The non allotment of plots by the opposite party to complainant after receiving the full and final amount is deficiency in service on the part of the opposite party, hence this complaint.
3. Notice was issued to opposite party had been received back with the report of ‘Left’ and after that service of the opposite party had been effected through publication on the application of the counsel for the complainant but opposite party failed to appear and was ordered to be proceeded against exparte vide order dated 27.8.2021.
4. Counsel for the complainant had filed affidavit of complainant alongwith copies of documents Ex.C1 to Ex.C16.
5. Written arguments filed by the complainant.
6. We have carefully examined all the documents/evidence produced on record and have duly considered and perused the arguments as put forth by the learned counsels for the complainant while at the same time also taking the due judicial-notice of the opposite party service provider/real estate colonizer vendor’s intentional option to ‘ex-parte’ proceedings by way of non-participation, in spite of the ‘proven’ summon-service through the publication. Although, it has been a settled law that a titled party’s intentional absence/ex-parte participation gives rise to the judicial but discretionary presumption that the ex-parte/absentee(s) litigant(s) has no eligible defense to prosecute; still, we have provided a judicious opportunity to the ex-parte absentee opposite party vendor by way of a close examination and a fairly deduced ‘resume’ upon which to place/base the resultant award under the applicable adjudicatory statute.
7. We find that the present complaint has arisen as a result of non-delivery/ refusal to hand over the promised possession of the residential plot of land (in terms of the agreement to sell) in spite of having received its full consideration as duly paid out by the present complainant as duly proved vide her affidavit Ex.C1 and as evidenced through money receipts Ex.C2 and Ex.C3, Ex.C5 to Ex.C16 in terms of the related agreement Ex.C4.
8. In the light of the all above, we partly allowed the present complaint and thus ORDER the titled opposite party Vendor/Service Provider to refund the complainant’s consideration amount of Rs.20,00,000/- besides to pay her Rs.5,000/- as cost and compensation for having suffered harassment etc within 45 days of the receipt of the copy of these orders (directly in the complainants saving bank account only) otherwise the aggregate awarded amount shall attract interest @ 6% PA from the date of orders till actually paid.
9. The complaint could not be decided within the stipulated period due to heavy pendency of Court Cases, vacancies in the office and due to pandemic of Covid-19.
10. Copy of the order be communicated to the parties free of charges. After compliance, file be consigned to record.
(Naveen Puri)
President.
ANNOUNCED: (R.S.Sukhija)
MAY 05, 2022. Member.
YP.
