Haryana

Kurukshetra

CC/292/2019

Parkash Steel - Complainant(s)

Versus

SBI - Opp.Party(s)

Harvinder Pal Singh

10 May 2022

ORDER

BEFORE THE DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION, KURUKSHETRA.

 

                                                                    Complaint No.:    292 of 2019.

                                                                   Date of institution:         22.07.2019.

                                                                   Date of decision: 10.05.2022

 

Parkash Steel Furniture, Aggarsain Chowk, Umri Road, Kurukshetra, through its Sole Proprietor, Ram Parkash son of Ved Parkash.

                                                                                                …Complainant.

                                                     Versus

 

1. State Bank of India, Railway Road, Thanesar, District Kurukshetra, through its Branch Manager.
2. Sanjay Kumar, Deputy Manager of State Bank of India, Railway Road, Thanesar, Distt. Kurukshetra.

...Respondents.

 

CORAM:   NEELAM KASHYAP, PRESIDENT.    

                   NEELAM, MEMBER.

                   ISSAM SINGH SAGWAL, MEMBER.           

 

Present:       Shri Harwinder Singh, Advocate for the complainant.

                   Shri Rajan Chawla, Advocate for the OPs.

 

ORDER:

 

1.                This is a complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short “Act”).

2.                By way of complaint in hand, complainant alleged that he was running business of Steel Furniture in the name of Parkash Steel Furniture, through its Sole Proprietor Ram Parkash s/o Ved Parkash in Aggarsain Chowk, Umri Road, Kurukshetra. He obtained cash credit limit loan of Rs.5,00,000/- vide account No.10622239856 from the OPs in the year 2004 and after clearing all the loan amount, he renewed the said amount in the year 2014 of Rs.6,00,000/-. The complainant paid the entire interest/ installment with interest and abide by all the terms and conditions of OPs loan agreement. On 10.07.2019, he issued a cheque No.071483 of OP Bank for Rs.1,34,206/- in favour of Blue Dar Express Ltd., City Heart Complex, Red Road, Jyotinagar, Kurukshetra and on 11.07.2019, the CR (current balance) in the said account of complainant was standing (+)Rs.1,28,098.13 and Rs.6,00,000/- of limit account. In total a sum of Rs.7,28,098.13 can be got withdrawn/transferred by him from that account on that date. On 15.7.2019, when Blue Dart Express Ltd presented the said cheque for encashment in its account, the OP dishonoured the same with remarks “Funds Insufficient”. On 16.7.2019, when he came to know about this, he visited to OP bank and met with Ops and OP No.2 misbehaved with him and told that said DR (Limit Account) had been closed by them, without any intimation, knowledge, permission or request of complainant, prior to closing the same. An amount of Rs.1,28,098.13 was in credit in his favour, but the Ops had closed the said account. On 17.7.2019, he again visited the Ops bank and requested for reopening of account, but Ops demanded valuation of property and on 19.7.2019, he submitted all the documents, but the Ops had not reopened his account. No intimation, oral/verbal, no notice in writing was given by OP bank to him, before closing the said Cash Credit Limit Loan Account. Due to dishonour of cheque, he suffered mental and physical harassment and financial loss, which is an act of deficiency in services on the part of the OPs, constraining him to file the present complaint against the Ops, before this Commission.

3.                On receipt of notice of complaint, OPs appeared and filed their written statement, raising preliminary objections regarding maintainability; locus-standi; cause of action; complaint is bad for mis-joinder and non-joinder of necessary parties. It is submitted that the complainant firm availed a cash credit limit from Op bank for Rs.6,00,000/-. The cash credit limit of each and every borrower is renewed every year after observing the track record of borrower and after getting further relevant papers as per bank norms. In the present case, renewal of cash credit limit of firm was due and it required some relevant papers from the complainant. That for the renewal of legal search report of the mortgaged property was required from the bank panel advocate and the same was obtained from the panel advocate Sh. K.K. Kaushik. As per legal search report the certified copy of decree of the mortgaged property was the necessary document requires and the charge of bank to create the lien was also required on the mortgaged property to take safety measure in the interest of the bank to protect the public money. It is worth to mention here that the complainant had not provided both the relevant requirement being the necessary documents, despite the bank request letter dated 19.7.2019 sent by way of registered post dated 22.7.2019 to the complainant and the cash credit limit of complainant was no further renewed as per bank system. The cash credit limit account of complainant became inoperative due to non-renewal of limit account. There is no deficiency on the part of OP bank. Rest of the contents of the complaint are denied and prayed for dismissal the same.

4.                In order to support his case, complainant tendered affidavit Ex.CW1/A along with documents Ex.C-1 to ExC-23 and closed the same.

5.                On the other hand, the OPs in order to support their case, tendered affidavit Ex.RW1/A along with documents Ex.R-2 to Ex.R-4 and closed the same.

6.                We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and gone through the case file as well carefully.

7.                At the outset, the learned counsel for the OPs has raised two objections. Firstly this Commission has no right to direct the financial institution to provide or not provide the loan facilities to a customer, as such, the present complaint is not maintainable before this Commission, in view of case law titled UCO Bank & 2 Others Vs. Gulbahar Bano & Anr., First Appeal No.45 of 2014 (against the order dated 10.12.2013 in Complaint No.03/2011 of the State Commission, Rajasthan), D.O.D. 1109.2018 (National Commission). Secondly, complainant is not the consumer qua the OPs, as envisaged u/s 2(1)(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and present complaint is not maintainable before this Commission and same is liable to be dismissed on this ground also. To support his this contention, he placed reliance on case law titled Shrikant G. Mantri Vs. Punjab National Bank, Civil Appeal No.11397 of 2016, decided on 22.02.2022 by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

8.                Coming to the first objection of the OPs. To support this contentions, the OPs placed on record case law (cited) supra UCO Bank & 2 Others Vs. Gulbahar Bano & Anr. and extract part of Para No.13 of said case law is relevant, which reads as under:-

                   “No consumer Forum has right to direct financial institution to provide loan to a particular party as this is the function of the concerned financial institution to examine the proposal and then to sanction or not to sanction the loan after assessment of credit worthiness of the concerned applicant”.

 

9.                There is no dispute that in the case in hand, the complainant made prayer to this Commission to give directions to the OPs to reopen/continue his loan account, which was allegedly closed by the OPs bank, but in view of above-mentioned case law, this Commission has no right to direct the financial institution/OPs to provide the loan facility to its customer or not, because, it is the internal function of a financial institution, after examining the proposal, to decide whether to provide the loan facility to its worthy customer or not. Hence, in view of case law, this Commission cannot give any direction to the OPs bank to reopen/continue the loan account of the complainant, as sought by the complainant, and on this very ground, complaint is not maintainable before this Commission and is liable to be dismissed.   

10.              Now coming to the second objections of the OPs. In this regard, the OPs contended that the complainant was doing the business of steel furniture for commercial purposes to earn the profits and took the cash credit limit loan account to expand his business profits and relationship between the complainant and OPs are purely “business to business” relationship. As such, complainant is not the consumer qua the OPs, as envisaged u/s 2(1)(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and present complaint is not maintainable before this Commission and same is liable to be dismissed, on this ground only.

11.              To this effect, the learned counsel for the complainant has argued that complainant is running the business of steel furniture for earning his livelihood by way of self employment, as such, present complaint is maintainable before this Commission. To support his contentions, he placed reliance on case law titled Branch Manager, ICICI Bank Ltd. Vs. M/s Limenaph Chemicals Private, decided on 07.09.2017 by the Hon’ble National Commission.  

12.              In order to decide this issue, it is necessary to refer extract part of Section 2(1)(d) of Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which reads as under:

                   “Consumer” means any person who; (i) buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promises or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any user of such goods other than the person who buys such goods for consideration paid or promises or partly paid or partly promises, or under any system of deferred payment when such use is made with the approval of such person but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or for any commercial purpose; or (ii) hires or avails of any services for a consideration which has been paid or promises or partly paid and partly promises, 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 promises, or partly paid and partly promises, 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”.

13.              In Para No.1 of the complaint, complainant mentioned that he is running the business of Steel Furniture in the name of Parkash Steel Furniture, through its Sole Proprietor Ram Parkash s/o Ved Parkash in Aggarsain Chowk, Umri Road, Kurukshetra, but it is pertinent to mention here that throughout the whole complaint, the complainant, nowhere mentioned that he is running the said business/firm for earning his livelihood, by means of self-employment. Moreover, complainant failed to produce any documentary evidence on the case file in this regard. So, from the above facts and circumstances of the case, it can be gathered that the complainant took the cash credit limit loan account from the OPs to expand his business profits and relationship between the complainant and OPs are purely “business to business” relationship, which clearly comes within the ambit of “commercial purpose”. In this regard, the objection taken by the OPs is believable in toto. Our view is also supported by the case law cited (supra) titled Shrikant G. Mantri Vs. Punjab National Bank, by counsel for the OPs and extract part of Para No.47 of it, reads as under:

                    “The relations between the appellant and respondent is purely “business to business” relationship.  As such, the transactions would clearly come within the ambit of “commercial purpose”. It cannot be said that the services were availed “exclusively for the purposes of earning his livelihood” “by means of self employment”. The law cited (supra) by counsel for the complainant is not applicable with the facts and circumstances of the case in hand being rested on different footings.

14.              From the above facts and circumstances of the case, this Commission has come to the conclusion that present complaint is not maintainable before this Commission and same is liable to be dismissed.

15.              Hence, due to the reasons stated hereinbefore, present complaint is, dismissed, it being not maintainable before this Commission, leaving the complainant to bear his own costs of litigations. Certified copy of this order be supplied to the parties concerned, forthwith, free of cost as permissible under Rules. File be indexed and consigned to the record-room, after due compliance.

Dated: 10.05.2022.

    

                                                                                        (Neelam Kashyap)               

(Neelam)                    (Issam Singh Sagwal)                   President,

Member.                    (Member).                                     DCDRC, Kurukshetra.

 

 

                  
Typed by: Sham Kalra, Stenographer.