Per Shri P.N. Kashalkar – Hon’ble Presiding Judicial Member:
(1) This is an appeal filed by the BOB Cards Limited against the judgement and order passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, South Mumbai in Consumer Complaint No.137/2003 on 03.12.2003. The complaint was filed by Shri Shri Shrawankumar Bagaria, Bagaria regarding deficiency in service in respect of maintenance of account of credit card purchased by the Complainant and for non-supply of statement of accounts. The District Forum partly allowed the complaint and directed Opponents, the Appellant herein to pay a sum of `2,000/- within two months to the Complainant. Aggrieved by this order Bank of Baroda has filed this appeal.
(2) Appeal was filed in the year 2004 and after filing of appeal no steps have been taken by the Appellant to take circulation of this matter before this Commission. On 2nd August, 2011 the office placed this matter before us on finding that this appeal was not yet admitted. So for deciding admission of the appeal we had issued notice to both the parties. As per our order dated 2nd August, 1991 the notice was made returnable today. Today none is present for both the parties. We, therefore, perused the appeal memo and the impugned judgement to decide the appeal on merit.
(3) We are finding that the District Forum has rightly passed the order giving compensation of `2,000/- to the Complainant/Respondent for deficiency in service on the part of the Appellant Company. The District Forum observed as under:
“prima-facie it appears to be true that Opponent though duly served with the notice has not appeared before the Forum. The attitude of the Opponent and failure to supply the requisite statement of account amounts to deficiency in service. It also observed that Complainant had made so many phone calls to the Opponent but there was no response.”
Complainant’s grievance was that Appellant had debited certain amount from his account but it had not made payment to the third party. Ultimately he had to pay the said amount from his other credit cards. In the appeal memo it is mentioned that on 19th September, 1998 for the sum of `7,801/- and on 28th September, 1998, `5,134/- which were wrongly entered and shown in the statement of account and thereafter they had subsequently given credit on 15th April, 1999 to the card holder. This would clearly mean that the Respondent’s allegations that his account was not maintained properly by the Appellant was having substance and for this deficiency in service the District Forum appears to have awarded part payment of `2,000/- out of `3,000/-. On the whole, we are finding that the District forum rightly decided the complaint and awarded `2,000/- as compensation as against the demand of `50,000/- and hence, there appears to be no substance in the appeal and at the stage of admission itself we are inclined to reject this appeal. Hence, the order:
O R D E R
(i) Appeal stands rejected.
(ii) No order as to costs.
(iii) Inform the parties accordingly.
Pronounced on 22nd September, 2011
