National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC): A Division Member Bench of S.M. Kantikar (Presiding Member) and Dinesh Singh (Member), dismissed a revision petition filed against the order of Haryana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, whereby the order of the district forum was affirmed.
The main issue that arose before the Commission was whether the instant dispute required interference by the National Commission under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act (COPRA).
The Commission observed that the respondent 1 had entered into an agreement with the appellant wherein the appellant had promised for providing various amenities like Club House, Internal roads, installation of fire fighting system and arrangement of sewerage and garbage etc. Further, the maintenance charge was to be calculated by taking the area as 1830 sq. ft, however, the appellant charged excess amount of maintenance charges from the respondent 1. Also, the amenities promised by the appellant were not provided to the respondent 1. The Commission rejected the contention of the petitioner that the respondent 1 did not fall under the category of “consumer” as per the provisions of COPRA. In the decision of Rubi (Chandra) Dutta v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., (2011) 11 SCC 269, wherein it was held that the National Commission while deciding a matter under Section 21 of the Act, should not interfere with the concurrent finding of fact recorded in the judgment impugned before it.
The Commission held that there is a drastic increase in the number of problems from the construction industry where consumers are fooled by builders or developers. The petitioner failed to provide evidence such as the Commissioner’s Report, Engineer’s report etc. to prove that the amenities as per the agreement were provided to the respondent 1 and it had also failed to justify the excessive money which was charged by it from the respondent 1 in the form of maintenance charges. Finally, the Commission held that to exercise the revisional jurisdiction under Section 21(b) of the COPRA it must show that there was a jurisdictional error or a legal principle was ignored or miscarriage of justice. The petition was dismissed and the order of state commission was upheld.[Make Wave Sea Resort (P) Ltd. v. L.R. Chowdhary,2018 SCC OnLine NCDRC 389, order dated 13-11-2018]
