ORDER (ORAL) Delay condoned. Challenge in this Revision Petition, under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short “the Act”), by the two senior functionaries of the Northern Railway, is to the order dated 23.03.2017, passed by the Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, New Delhi (for short “the State Commission”) in First Appeal No.1012 of 2014. By the impugned order, involving a compensation of a paltry sum of ₹35,000/-, the State Commission has affirmed the order dated 05.09.2014, passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-VI, New Delhi (for short “the District Forum”) in Complaint Case No.1024 of 2011 and has thus dismissed the Appeal preferred by the -2- Petitioners herein. In the first instance, while accepting the Complaint filed by the Respondent herein, alleging deficiency in service on the part of the staff of the Railways in not taking due care in protecting the baggage of the passengers travelling in a reserved A.C. compartment, resulting in the theft of her laptop, within 10 minutes of the boarding and returning the finding that the Railways had not taken adequate steps for preventing unauthorized entry of some persons, who did not have confirmed reservations, the District Forum had directed the Petitioners to pay to the Complainant a lump sum amount of ₹35,000/- as compensation for the loss of laptop along with costs of litigation, quantified at ₹10,000/-. The State Commission has rejected the stand of the Petitioners that having failed to book the baggage, which in the present case happened to be a personal laptop, against proper receipt, the question of deficiency in service on the part of the Railways on account of the said theft did not arise, observing thus: “The first part of Section 100 provides that the railway administration shall not be responsible for loss, etc. of any luggage unless the railway servant has booked the luggage and given receipt thereof. The second part reads that in the case of luggage which is carried by passenger in his charge railway administration shall not be responsible for the loss unless it is also proved that the loss is due to the negligence of the railway staff. In this particular case the findings of the lower Fora are that there has been negligence on the part of Railway or on the part of its servants. There is no case for us to reopen the factual findings.” When the case came up for motion hearing, regard being had to the fact that total amount of compensation awarded by the Fora below was small and issuing notice to the Complainant would have involved further expenses towards travel expenses of the Complainant, we had asked Mr. Sharma, learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioners/Railways to seek instructions as to whether the present Revision Petition was to be pressed or not. -3- When the case is taken up for hearing, Mr. Sharma states that though an officer from the Railways is present, but he has no instructions on the afore-noted query. Since on the last date of hearing, we had heard learned Counsel for the Petitioners for some time on the merits of the Petition and were prima-facie convinced that there was ground to interfere with the afore-stated finding recorded by both the Fora below, we feel that it is not the case for wasting further judicial time on such a petty matter. We are constrained to observe that instead of wasting the precious judicial time, up to this stage, perhaps incurring more expenditure than the compensation awarded, the Railways would have been better advised to gracefully accept the order passed by the District Forum in the Complaint, filed as far back as in the year 2011, more so when the said order was not challenged within the period of limitation. Under the circumstances, having regard to the quantum of the amount involved, we do not find it to be a case for exercise of limited Revisional Jurisdiction to entertain the Revision Petition and cause further harassment to the Complainant to defend the proceedings. Consequently, Revision Petition is dismissed, keeping open the question of law, sought to be raised in the present Revision Petition, for being decided in an appropriate case. The Revision Petition is dismissed accordingly. |
