JUSTICE SUDIP AHLUWALIA, MEMBER

2. The factual background, in brief, is that the Complainant applied for a LIG ‘B’ house in the Mansarovar Scheme 1979-80 with application No. 59468 dated 12.01.1980/15.01.1980, depositing Rs. 1800/- in cash on 11.01.1980 via challan No. 751329 for a LIG house. The Petitioner subsequently allowed the Applicant to modify the previously accepted instalments in 1981 and invited applications for changing registration under the modified procedure. The Complainant filed application No. 30278 dated 01.07.1982 for a change from LIG to MIG ‘B’, depositing Rs. 2800/- through challan No. 30278 dated 01.07.1982. The Petitioner issued a registration certificate bearing No. H-10/3565/JPR/M/79/12668 dated 08.03.1983 for an MIG ‘B’ house under the general registration scheme, assigning the Complainant seniority No. 331 under the said registration. Despite numerous contacts and requests for house allotment, the Petitioner only provided assurances and failed to take any substantive action. The Complainant even provided his new address for correspondence through his letter dated 05.03.1991, but the Petitioner did not update the address in their records nor responded appropriately. On 03.11.1993, the Petitioner sent a letter to the old address demanding instalment payments, which the Complainant could not deposit as he never received such Demand Letter at his new address. Despite continuous efforts and visits to the Petitioner's office from 1993 to 2010, the Complainant did not receive any satisfactory response nor any house allotment. Subsequent attempts, including sending an Affidavit and Legal Notice, also yielded no result. Being thus aggrieved by the deficiency in service, the Complainant filed his Complaint before the Ld. District Forum, Second Jaipur.

 3. The District Forum vide its Order dated 03.05.2016 allowed the Complaint and directed the Opposite Parties to allot a Flat to the Complainant within two months from the date of Order at the rate prevalent on 26.08.2010, and to issue a Demand Letter. In addition, the Opposite Parties were further directed to pay to the Complainant Rs. 1,00,000/- towards compensation and Rs. 10,000/- towards litigation costs. The Petitioner preferred Appeal against such Order in the State Commission, which partly allowed it and modified the Order of the District Forum. The relevant extracts of the impugned Order are set out as below -

“Complainant filed application for lower income group house. Later complainant deposited Rs.2800/- for change of income group. Reservation letter was issued but not delivered. Complainant gave previously information of change in address, but letter were sent at old address. Complainant made request to allot the house at the rates prevalent in 1979-80.

 

Learned District Forum passed order dated 26.08.2010 to give house on prevalent rates. Appeals were preferred on behalf of both parties. According to Housing Board District Forum can not interfere in connection with rates, therefore judgement is wrong. According to appeal of complainant, the complainant should be given house on old rates.

 

It is settled principle of law that in the matter of rates of housing board, the forum can not interfere in this case. Housing Board submitted priority list exhibit D-13 In which name of complainant is at 121 number and challan No.39468 is written. P 3145 is priority number. Just below this priority number, the rate at which the house was allotted, at the same rate the house is allotted to the complainant. According modification is made in the order of District Forum. Remaining order shall remain under status quo.

Parties to beer [sic] their own cost.”

 

4. Ld. Counsel for Petitioner has argued that the Ld. Fora below erred in law by disregarding the established principle laid down by this Commission in "Kishandas M. Inani v. Secretary Rajasthan Housing Board" and by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in "DDA v. Pushpendra Singh Jain, JT 1994 SC 292", wherein it was held that Consumer Fora cannot intervene in matters related to pricing or the cost of flats; That the Complainant, despite being allocated priority no. P-3145/M2/G-1/HP79, failed to deposit the required seed money/instalments within the specified timeframe, as requested in the R.D. Letter dated 03.11.1993. Merely paying the registration amount does not confer any right to allotment of a house. Additionally, the Complainant refused to provide the KYC documents requested by the Petitioner in its letter dated 31.01.2010; That numerous applicants with priority over the Complainant were awaiting allotment after completing due processes. Therefore, the Petitioner cannot allot a flat to the Complainant; That the State Commission had no jurisdiction to direct the Petitioner to allot a flat, considering the provisions of the Principle of Costing and Disposal of Property Regulation, 1970. The final cost of the house is determined after completing the development charges for road, electricity, and other facilities; That the existence of the letter dated 05.03.1991 purportedly sent by the Complainant for a change of address is disputed, as no such letter was received by the Petitioner and was not on record with the DC, Mansoravar, Jaipur. The Complainant had thus presented incorrect facts and misled the lower Fora.

5. Ld. Counsel for Respondent has argued that the Petitioner had sent the KYC letter to the old address of the Complainant, which was returned undelivered. This indicates that the Petitioner did not update the Complainant's new address on record, suggesting that the Complainant was not residing at the old address at that time. However, the Complainant later submitted the KYC documents and affidavit via a letter dated 26.08.2010, which the Petitioner received; That both the District Forum and the State Commission rightly concluded that the Petitioner received the documents for KYC and therefore, when the seniority letter was issued, it was the duty of the Petitioner to promptly issue the reservation letter and allot the house to the Complainant. Consequently, the delay in the process cannot be attributed to the Complainant; That due to the delay, the Complainant was deprived of the opportunity to benefit from the initially agreed-upon rates, causing mental and physical distress; That according to the District Forum's decision, the Complainant was entitled to allotment at the rates prevailing on 26.08.2010. 

6. This Commission has heard both the Ld. Counsel for Petitioner and Respondent and perused the material available on record.

7. At the outset, it may be mentioned that decisions of both the Ld. Fora below are virtually concurrent. The Ld. District Forum had directed allotment of the house/flat to the Respondent/ Complainant at the rate prevalent as on 26.8.2010 with a direction to issue the Demand Letter, apart from awarding additional compensation of Rs. 1.00 lakh and litigation costs of Rs. 10,000/- in his favour.  The Ld. State Commission in its impugned Order while correctly observing that the Forum cannot interfere in the matter of rates to be fixed by the Housing Board, nevertheless directed allotment in favour of the Respondent in accordance with the priority list produced from the side of the Petitioner/ Housing Board itself, which was marked as Exhibit-D13, and in which the name of the Complainant was noted at the relevant seniority number.  The State Commission therefore directed that the rate applicable to the Complainant would be the same as charged from the Allottee who was placed next in the seniority list. 

8. Now it is a matter of record that at no stage the allotment of the Respondent/Complainant was cancelled by the Housing Board, or otherwise, his seniority number would not have continued to appear in the  relevant seniority list in respect of the Middle Income Group segment “B”.

9. Regrettably, while filing this Revision Petition, the Housing Board did not attach any of the documents lead into evidence by the parties before the Ld. Fora below. Even the copy of the Memorandum of Appeal filed by the Respondent Board itself was not filed alongwith the Revision Petition.  On the contrary, it was the side of the Respondent/ Complainant which filed copies of the various Exhibited documents in this Commission on 21.2.2024, although it was incumbent upon the Housing Board itself to file the same alongwith its Revision Petition.  A copy of the Memorandum of Appeal was lastly tendered in Court without any application or indexing on behalf of the Housing Board on the very last date of Final Hearing, although the matter had been taken up for hearing on no less than five different dates prior to that, between 4.1.2024 to 19.4.2024. 

10. The main emphasis from the side of the Petitioner/Housing Board in seeking to assail the concurrent decision of both the lower Fora below is that after having applied for allotment of house in LIG category in the year 1980 and thereafter getting his registration changed for Middle Income Group Housing in 1982, it is inconceivable that the Complainant would not have known about the need to pay his instalments for more than two decades.  In this context, attention was drawn to the averments made in Para Nos. 8 & 9 of the Complaint in which it has been mentioned that the Complainant had made many rounds of the Office of the Respondent Board in connection with his allotment, but never got any  satisfactory reply or actual allotment in his favour, and that ultimately on 28.8.2010 he sent his Affidavit with photocopies of his Passport, PAN Card, Registration Letter and also copies of all his receipts with a request to allot the house in his favour at the earliest, to which again he did not receive any reply.  

11. In this regard, it may be observed that submission of the Affidavit alongwith copies of various documents and receipts  as actually done by the Respondent/ Complainant is a normal practice, and not any clandestine procedure followed or jealously guarded by the Petitioner Board which is a public Authority.  So there cannot be any scope to assume that the Complainant must have known about the  position of his application in his case merely because he had submitted his Affidavit alongwith copies of the relevant documents.

12. On the other hand, the contention of the Housing Board to the effect that it never received any intimation regarding change of his address from the Complainant is falsified from Exhibit-9, which happens to be the own letter issued by the “Sahayak Shrawasan Adhikari(Mu.)” of Rajasthan Housing Board dated 1.4.1991, vide which the Estate Manager, Jaipur-II was instructed to do the needful in view of the change of address intimated by the Complainant.  Such letter of the Complainant dated 5.3.1991 (Exhibit-10) had been forwarded in original by the aforesaid Officer to the Estate Manager.  Consequently, the defence of the Petitioner Board that there was no deficiency on its part stands comprehensively demolished.  

13. Even otherwise, it is well settled that in its revisional jurisdiction, this Commission cannot go into re-appreciation of evidence in a case of concurrent findings, and the scope available to this Forum in its revisional jurisdiction is very limited. The Hon’ble Apex Court in “Rajiv Shukla Vs. Gold Rush Sales and Services Ltd. & Anr., Civil Appeal No. 5928 of 2022, decided on September 8, 2022”; in this regard has observed inter alia –

 “7.1 At this stage, it is required to be noted that on appreciation of evidence on record the District Forum as well as the State Commission concurrently found that the car delivered was used car.  Such findings of facts recorded by the District Forum and the State Commission were not required to be interfered by the National Commission in exercise of the revisional jurisdiction.  It is required to be noted that while passing the impugned judgment and order the National Commission was exercising the revisional jurisdiction vested under Section 21 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.  As per Section 21(b) the National Commission shall have jurisdiction to call for the records and pass appropriate orders in any consumer dispute which is pending before or has been decided by any State Commission where it appears to the National Commission that such State Commission has exercised its jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or has failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or has acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity.  Thus, the powers of the National Commission are very limited.  Only in a case where it is found that the State Commission has exercised its jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or has failed to exercise the jurisdiction so vested illegally or with material irregularity, the National Commission would be justified in exercising the revisional jurisdiction.  In exercising of revisional jurisdiction the National Commission has no jurisdiction to interfere with the concurrent findings recorded by the District Forum and the State Commission which are on appreciation of evidence on record.  Therefore, while passing the impugned judgment and order the National Commission has acted beyond the scope and ambit of the revisional jurisdiction conferred under Section 21 (b) of the Consumer Protection Act.”

 

14. Again in Mrs. Rubi (Chandra) Dutta Vs. M/s United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Civil Appeal No. 2588 of 2011, decided on 18.3.2011, the Apex Court had set aside the decision of this Commission by virtue of which the concurrent decisions of the Ld. District Forum and the State Commission, which had gone in favour of the Complainant, were set aside with the following observations –

“23. Also, it is to be noted that the revisional powers of the National Commission are derived from Section 21 (b) of the Act, under which the said power can be exercised only if there is some prima facie jurisdictional error appearing in the impugned order, and only then, may the same be set aside. In our considered opinion there was no jurisdictional error or miscarriage of justice, which could have warranted the National Commission to have taken a different view than what was taken by the two Forums.  The decision of the National Commission rests not on the basis of some legal principle that was ignored by the Courts below, but on a different (and in our opinion, an erroneous) interpretation of the same set of facts.  This is not the manner in which revisional powers should be invoked.  In this view of the matter, we are of the considered opinion that the jurisdiction conferred on the National Commission under Section 21 (b) of the Act has been transgressed.  It was not a case where such a view could have been taken by setting aside the concurrent findings of two fora.”

 

15. Both the Ld. Fora below had come to the concurrent finding of deficiency on the part of the Petitioner/Board. This Commission therefore sees no grounds to interfere with this finding.  Furthermore, the Ld. State Commission was right in directing the Petitioner Authority to allot the house in question to the Respondent/ Complainant at the rate prevalent when the next below allottee in the Seniority list was granted such allotment.  Consequently, there is no ground to interfere even with this direction, as the same does not amount to fixation of price/consideration money, but only a direction to apply the price so fixed by the Authority at the relevant time in favour of the Respondent/ Complainant.

16. Resultantly, this Revision Petition fails and is accordingly dismissed with additional litigation costs of Rs. 25,000/- in favour of the Respondent/ Complainant.

17. Pending application(s), if any, also stand disposed off as having been rendered infructuous.