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Judgment
-THIS is a Revision Petition against the order dated 14th January, 1992 passed in Appeal No.237/91 by the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Bombay by which the order of the District Forum was confirmed and the appeal of the Appellant who was the Opposite Party in the complaint filed by the present Respondent was dismissed.
IT is not necessary to give the facts of the case in detail. Suffice it to say that the present Respondent filed a complaint under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short the Act) against the present Petitioner who are Developes and Builders. Under an agreement arrived at between the parties a ''shop'' was allotted to the complainant. According to the allegation in the complaint the possession of the said shop was delivered to the complainant. The Complainant put some of her belongings in that shop. After a day or two when she went to the shop for taking out some goods, she found that the Opposite Party had also placed a lock on the shutters of the shop. Thus the Opposite Party interfered with the possession of the shop despite having delivered its possession to her. IT may be mentioned here that there is a dispute between the parties over the price of the shop. According to the Complainant the price of the shop was Rs. 50,000/- which she has paid while according to the Opposite Party the price of the shop was Rs. 90,000/-. The District Forum believed the affidavit of the Complainant that she had been given the possession and further remarked that it did not find any reason to disbelieve her. The District Forum therefore, ordered the Opposite Party i.e. the present Petitoner to handover the possession to the Complainant within 15 days of the order. As noticed earlier the Opposite Party filed appeal before the State Commission without any success.
The learned Counsel for the petitioner rightly argued before us that the dispute raised by the Complainant does not fall under the Act. It was brought to our notice that the heading of the complaint filed by the Complainant is in the following terms: "In the matter of non-delivery of possession in spite of possession handed over to the Applicant". The learned Counsel for the Petitioner argued that when according to the Complainant the possession has already been delivered to the Complainant by the Opposite Party and later on she was dispossessed then the dispute was beyond the scope of the Act. According to him, whatever service was required to be rendered by the Opposite Party was fulfilled by delivery of possession and thus there was no question of deficiency or negligence in the rendering of service.
WE are of the opinion that the above argument has force. After the possession of the shop had been delivered to the Complainant nothing remained for the Opposite Party to fulfil. Relief in respect of the alleged dis-possession of the Complainant by the Opposite Party must be obtained by the Complainant from an appropriate Court and not under the Act. For determining if a Forum Constituted under the Act has jurisdiction to decide the complaint we have to see the allegations contained in the complaint. If those allegations do not make out a consumer dispute falling under the Act then averments of the Opposite Party will not confer jurisdiction upon the forum established under the Act. For the above reason we accept the present Revision Petition and set aside the orders of the State Commission as well as of the District Forum and dismiss the complaint filed by the Respondent. We make no order as to costs. Complaint allowed.