JUSTICE V.K. JAIN, PRESIDING MEMBER (ORAL) The complainant / respondent No-1, who was a member of Respondent No. 2 Indri Cooperative House Building Society Ltd., took a loan of Rs.60,000/- from the aforesaid society. The society, in turn, took loan from the petitioner Haryana State Cooperative Housing Federation Ltd. The loan taken by the complainant from the society was repayable in eighty quarterly installments along with interest. After payment of some installments, the office of the Society having closed down, further payments were not made. This is the case of the complainant that though he wanted to pay the remaining installments he could not do so on account of the society having become defunct. The property documents of the plot which the society had allotted to the complainant had been deposited by the society with the petitioner Federation at the time of taking loan, by creating sub-mortgage in favour of the Federation. Since the said documents were not returned to the complainant, he approached the concerned District Forum by way of a consumer complaint, seeking supply of a statement of account, acceptance of the balance outstanding amount and return of his original documents. 2. The Society remained ex-parte before the District Forum but the Federation as well as its Development Officer contested the same and took a preliminary objection that the complainant was not their consumer and there was no privity of contract between them and the complainant. 3. The District Forum ruled in favour of the complainant and issued the following directions: “(a) Opposite parties shall prepare a fresh statement of account relating to the loan account of the complainant (b) As the complainant wanted to foreclose his loan account but could not do so due to closure of the office of OP-1 so OPs shall not charge any interest, penal interest or compound interest on the loan amount from the complainant from May, 2002 till the preparation of the fresh statement of account as directed above. (c) OPs shall serve the fresh statement of account to the complainant within a period of thirty days of the receipt of copy of this order and the complainant shall deposit the amount due against him within further thirty days of the receipt of fresh statement of account from OPs. (d) After receipt of the entire loan amount from the complainant as directed above, OPs shall return original documents of his property within a period of fifteen days of the deposit of the amount by the complainant. (e) There shall be no order as to costs.” 4. Being aggrieved from the aforesaid directions given by the District Forum, the petitioner approached the concerned State Commission by way of an appeal. The said appeal having been dismissed, the petitioner is before this Commission by way of this revision petition. 5. The primary issue involved in this petition is as to whether the complainant can be said to be a consumer of the petitioner Federation or not. The term ‘consumer’ is defined in Section 2(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, which to the extent it is relevant reads as under: “consumer’ means any person who, - Hires or avails of any services for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any beneficiary of such services other than the person who hires or avails of the services for consideration paid or promised, or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such services are availed of with the approval of the first mentioned person but does not include a person who avails of such services for any commercial purpose”.
It would thus be seen that the term ‘consumer’ comprises not only the person which himself hires or avails any services for a consideration but also includes any beneficiary of such service other than the person hiring or availing the services for consideration. 6. Admittedly, the loan from the petitioner Federation was taken by the society for the benefit of the complainant. Therefore, he was a beneficiary of the services of the petitioner though the said services were hired or availed by the society and not directly by the complainant. Therefore, it would be difficult to say that the complainant was not a consumer of the petitioner Federation within the meaning of Section 2(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act. 7. The learned counsel for the petitioner states that the complainant has not paid his dues in respect of the loan which he had taken from the society. On a perusal of the directions issued by the District Forum and upheld by the State Commission, we find that the complainant is required to pay the amount due against him after a statement of account is duly supplied to him. However, the petitioner has been directed not to charge interest, penal interest or compound interest from him, from May, 2002 till the statement of Account is prepared. Considering that the complainant was unable to service the loan on account of the society having become defunct, no compound interest or penal interest should be charged from him. There cannot be any objection to the petitioner providing a fresh statement of accounts, relating to the loan account of the complainant. However, the complainant will have to pay up-to-date regular contractual interest for the whole of the period, to the petitioner, he having not repaid the outstanding amount and having thus utilized the said amount for his personal purposes. We therefore, dispose of the revision petition with the following directions: (i) The petitioner shall supply a statement of account to the complainant within four weeks from today, showing the entire amount outstanding in his loan account, in terms of this order, as on date of the issuance of the statement of accounts. (ii) Considering that the Society had become defunct, no penal interest, or compound interest shall be charged from the complainant and only the regular contractual interest would be charged from him. (iii) The entire outstanding amount in terms of this order shall be paid by the complainant within six weeks of receiving the statement of account from the petitioner; (iv) On the complainant making payment of the entire outstanding amount, the original documents of his property shall be released to him within two weeks thereafter. | 
