Punjab

Faridkot

CC/16/200

Nishan Singh - Complainant(s)

Versus

Pipal Singh - Opp.Party(s)

Rajwinder Kaur

18 Apr 2017

ORDER

     DISTRICT  CONSUMER   DISPUTES   REDRESSAL   FORUM,   FARIDKOT

 

Complaint No. :        200

Date of Institution :   20.07.2016

Date of Decision :     18.04.2017

Nishan Singh s/o Harbans Singh r/o Sher Singh Wala, Tehsil and District Faridkot.

...Complainant

Versus

1. Pipal Singh Sidhu s/o Balbir Singh  r/o Chak Somia, Guru Harsahai District Ferozepur, M D, MGK Agriculture Holding Developers (India) Ltd, having its Head Office at Bikaner Branch Office at Akalsar Chowk-Dosanjh Road, Moga.
2. MGK Agriculture Holding Developers (India) Ltd, having its Corporate Office, Office No. 3, 4^th Floor, Sodhi complex, Vishvkarma Chowk, Ludhiana.
3. Sunny Sethi, Branch Manager, MJK Agriculture Holding Developers (India) Ltd, having its Branch Office at 1^st Floor on HDFC Bank, Circular Road, Faridkot.
4. MGK Agriculture Holding Developers (India) Ltd, Corporate office : Office No. 3, 4^th Floor, Sodhi complex, near Vishvkarma Chowk, G T Road, Ludhiana through its M D Pipal Singh Sidhu s/o Balbir Singh.

                                                      ........ OPs

Complaint under Section 12 of the

Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

 

Quorum:     Sh. Ajit Aggarwal, President,

Sh P Singla, Member.

Present:       Sh N S Sangha, Ld Counsel for Complainant,

                     OPs Exparte.

 

(Ajit Aggarwal,  President)

                                               Complainant has filed the present complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 against Ops seeking directions to refund the amount of Rs.75,600/- with interest besides Rs.10,000/-as compensation for harassment and mental agony alongwith litigation expenses of Rs.5,500/-.

2                                                 Briefly stated the case of complainant is that complainant deposited Rs.75,600/-with Ops vide receipt no. 0021361 dated 6.05.2013. It is submitted that complainant is in dire need of amount deposited with Ops and therefore, he requested Ops to make refund of Rs.75,600/-to which he is entitled as per agreement between parties on amount deposited by him alongwith interest, but OPs refused to do so. It is further submitted that complainant is registered for the farmer plots booked by him and his registration number is 2950021904 dt 6.05.2013 and estimated value of expiry of agreement is Rs.75,600/- and the area of land allotted is 162 square yards in khasra no.128, 169/192-16200 and after deposit of Rs.10,800/- registration letter was issued to complainant. Complainant made several requests to OPs to refund his entire amount but Ops, did not listen his requests, rather they flatly refused to admit his genuine request, which amounts to deficiency in service. This act of OPs has caused financial loss, great harassment and mental tension to complainant, which amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice. Complainant has prayed for directing OPs to pay Rs.75,600/-with interest and has also prayed for compensation of Rs.10,000/- besides Rs.5,500/-as cost of litigation . Hence, the complaint.

3                                              The Counsel for complainant was heard with regard to admission of the complaint and vide order dated 8.08.2016, complaint was admitted and notice was ordered to be issued to the opposite parties.

4                                               As per office report, notice issued to OP-1, 2 and 4 did not receive back undelivered. Statutory period expired. Acknowledgment might have been lost in transit. Despite waiting for a long period till 4.oo pm, no body appeared in the Forum either in person or through counsel to contest the case, therefore, vide order dated 18.10.2016, OP-1, 2 and 4 were declared as exparte. Notice was served to OP-3 through publication and it is presumed that OP-3 has sufficient knowledge of notice issued against him. Despite making several calls to OP-3, no body appeared in the Forum on behalf of OP-3 on date fixed, therefore, after waiting for a long period till 4.00 O’ clock, OP-3 was proceeded against exparte vide order dt 14.03.2017.

5                                               Ld Counsel for complainant tendered in exparte evidence, affidavit of complainant as Ex.C-1 and document Ex C-2 and then, closed the evidence on behalf of complainant.

6                                         Ld Counsel for complainant vehementally argued that complainant deposited Rs.75,600/-, him with Ops vide receipt no. 0021361 dated 6.05.2013. Complainant was in dire need of money and therefore, he requested Ops to make refund of Rs.75,600/-deposited by him with them alongwith interest, but OPs did not do so. Further submitted that complainant is registered for the farmer plots booked by him and his registration number is 2950021904 dt 6.05.2013 and estimated value of expiry of agreement is Rs.75,600/- and the area of land allotted is 162 square yards in khasra no.128, 169/192-16200 and after deposit of Rs.10,800/- registration letter was issued to complainant. Complainant made several requests to OPs to refund his entire amount but Ops, did not listen his requests, rather flatly refused to admit his genuine request, which amounts to deficiency in service. This act of OPs has caused financial loss, great harassment and mental tension to complainant, which amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice. Complainant has prayed for directing OPs to pay Rs.75,600/-with interest and has also prayed for compensation  and cost of litigation . Hence, the complaint. Complainant has prayed for accepting the complaint and has stressed on documents Ex C-1 to 2.

7                                As there is no rebuttal from OPs side therefore we have heard the exparte arguments addressed by ld counsel for complainant and have also carefully gone through the record available on the file.

8                             The case of the complainant is that he deposited Rs.75,600/-with Ops for purchasing plot and was allotted plot of 162 square yards in khasra no.128, 169/192-16200 and after deposit of Rs.10,800/- registration letter was issued to him and as per agreement, on expiry of agreement, he is entitled to have Rs.75,600/- from Ops. It is submitted that complainant was in dire need of money and therefore he approached Ops and made requests to them to refund his entire money deposited with them alongwith interest, but did not pay any heed to his requests and flatly refused to refund his amount, which amounts to deficiency in service. On the other hand Ops are exparte and there is no rebuttal from their side.

9                        From the perusal of document Ex C-2 the copy of agreement between complainant and Ops, it is clear that complainant deposited only Rs.10,800/-with them and estimated value on expiry of agreement comes to be Rs.75,600/- for which complainant has prayed for directions to Ops to make refund. It is illegality on the part of Ops to retain the amount of complainant for long time without any reason and they are liable to make refund of this amount to complainant. As the land which was agreed to be sold is situated at Madhya Pradesh and this Forum has jurisdiction to try and decide this complaint. Ld counsel for complainant argued that all the transactions between the parties were made at Faridkot. The payment regarding plot was also made to OPs at their Faridkot office and agreement was also executed between parties at Faridkot within the territorial jurisdiction of this Forum. So, this Forum has jurisdiction to try and decide the complaint. He put reliance on citation 2005(3) Consumer Protection Judgements581 titled as Divisional Railway Manager/Commercial, Southern Railway Vs Jasbir Singh decided by Union Territory Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh wherein they held that plead of lack of territorial jurisdiction was arose on the ground that train originated from Ernakulam in the State of Kerala and the destination station was New Delhi and as such, District Forum, Chandigarh has territorial jurisdiction to adjudicate the complaint. The Hon’ble State Commission observed that so far as the booking of ticket from the website of the Indian Railways at Chandigarh is concerned, it has been admitted and once this fact is admitted then a part of cause of action arose at Chandigarh where the tickets were booked on website and the tickets were delivered at Chandigarh, u/s 11 (2) (c) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which provides that complaint shall be instituted in a District Forum within the local limits of whose jurisdiction. In our considered opinion, the District Forum was right in holding that it had territorial jurisdiction to entertain and adjudicate the complaint cases and the arguments advanced by the ld counsel for the appellants to the contrary has no merit. In order to prove that  this Forum has jurisdiction to decide the present complaint, ld counsel for complainants has placed reliance on citation in case law 2014 (2) Consumer Law Today titled as Ms Dilshad Gill Vs M/s EMAAR MGF Land Pvt Ltd & Ors, wherein Hon’ble Chandigarh State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, U T Chandigarh has observed that Consumer Protection Act, 1986, Section 11-Territorial Jurisdiction-Flat at Chandigarh-Apart of Cause of action, accrued to the complainant at Chandigarh and as such, this Commission has the territorial jurisdiction to entertain and decide the complaint. In present case also, the payment is received by Ops from complainant at Faridkot as per Expression of Interest-cum-Agreement. It is further argued that Ops received payment at Faridkot as their Branch Office is situated at Faridkot.

10           Complainant made last payment to OPs on 6.05.2013 and agreement of sale was executed on 6.05.2013 and thus, on the point of limitation, ld counsel for complainant has placed reliance on citation 2015 (3) Consumer Law Today, 16 titled as Satish Kumar Pandey & anr Vs M/s Unitech Ltd wherein our Hon’ble National Commission, New Delhi observed as Consumer Protection Act, 1986, Sections2 (1) (g), 2 (1) (o) & 24 A Housing Construction - Limitation - Delay in construction and possession by the builder-Plea of OP that since the last date stipulated in the buyers agreement for giving possession of the flat to them expired more than two years ago the complaint is barred by limitation prescribed in Section 24-A-Held-it is by now settled legal proposition that failure to deliver possession being a continuous wrong, it constitutes a recurrent cause of action and therefore, so long as the possession is not delivered to him the buyers can always approach a Consumer Forum-it is only when the seller flatly refuses to give possession that the period of limitation prescribed in Section 24-A of the Consumer Protection Act would began to run-In that case the complaint has be to filed within two years from the date on which the seller refuses to deliver possession to the buyer.

11                        From the above discussion and case law produced by the ld counsel for complainant, we are fully convinced with the arguments advanced by ld counsel for complainant. Complainant has succeeded in proving his case. The act of OPs for receiving the payment of land and not giving the refund of same as agreed between parties amounts to deficiency in service and trade mal practice on their part.     

12                  From the careful perusal of the record and keeping in view the case law produced by complainant, this Forum is fully convinced with the arguments advanced by ld counsel for complainant and is of considered opinion that OPs have been deficient in services and there is trade mal practice on the part of OPs in not making refund of amount deposited by him with them despite several requests and also failed to return the amount received from complainant. Hence, the present complaint is hereby partly allowed. Therefore, OPs are directed to refund the amount of Rs.10,800/-to complainant with interest at the rate of 12% per anum from the date of payment till final realization. Ops are further directed to pay Rs.5,000/-as compensation for harassment and mental agony suffered by him besides Rs 3000/-as litigation expenses to complainant. OPs are directed to comply with the order within one month from the date of receipt of the copy of this order, failing which complainant shall be entitled to proceed under Section 25 and 27 of the Consumer Protection Act. Copies of order be supplied to the parties free of costs under the rules. File be consigned to record room.

Announced in Open Forum

Dated : 18.04.2017

 

                                        Member                                  President

           (P Singla)                                (Ajit Aggarwal)