M. Jamaludeen vs District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission Represented By Its President

P.V.Kunhikrishnan, J

This writ petition is filed with the following prayers:-

“i) To issue a Writ of Prohibition or any other writ prohibiting Respondent No. 1 from continuing with the proceedings in Exhibit P1 complaint against the Petitioner.

ii) To dispense with the production of translation of vernacular documents.

iii) To allow such other relief as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit. ” (SIC)

The main prayer in this writ petition is to issue a writ of prohibition or any other order prohibiting respondent no.1 from continuing with the proceedings in Ext.P1 complaint against the petitioner. The 1st respondent is the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission represented by its President, Kollam. This Court in Controller of Examinations, Kannur and Another vs Sreya.N (2021(5) KHC 537) considered the maintainability of these type of writ petitions in detail and observed that this Court need not entertain such writ petitions. It will be better to extract the relevant portion of the judgment. Paragraph 5 and 6 of the said judgment reads as follows:-

“5. Even though the Apex Court observed that in certain contingencies, this Court can entertain a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the High Court can use its discretion either to entertain such writ petition or to reject it. Specific averments are necessary in the writ petition for not availing the statutory remedy of appeal when an appealable order is challenged by filing a writ petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India. Simply stating that the authority who passed the order has no jurisdiction alone is not sufficient to invoke the jurisdiction under Art.226 of the constitution, especially when the appellate authority also can consider the question of jurisdiction. This court need not entertain writ petitions to interfere with orders passed by authorities without jurisdiction in all situations when a statutory remedy is available. This court can use discretion while entertaining such writ petitions considering the facts and circumstances of each case.

Here is a case, where Ext.P5 is admittedly an appealable order. When there is a statutory remedy against Ext.P5 order as per the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, this Court need not entertain a writ petition unless there are compelling reasons. The petitioners are the University and its authorities. They can approach the State Commission, instead of filing a writ petition before this Court under Art.226 of the constitution of India. I think there is a camp sitting of the State Commission in some of the centres in Kerala and the principal sitting is at Thiruvananthapuram. Nothing is mentioned in the writ petition which prevents the writ petitioners to move an appeal against Ext.P5 order before the State Commission except the contention that CDRC has no jurisdiction to entertain Ext P1 complaint. Sec.41 of the Act, 2019 deals with appeal against the order of the District Commission. The same is extracted hereunder :

“41. Appeal against order of District Commission - Any person aggrieved by an order made by the District Commission may prefer an appeal against such order to the State Commission on the grounds of facts or law within a period of forty-five days from the date of the order, in such form and manner, as may be prescribed:

Provided that the State Commission may entertain an appeal after the expiry of the said period of forty-five days, if it is satisfied that there was sufficient cause for not filing it within that period:

Provided further that no appeal by a person, who is required to pay any amount in terms of an order of the District Commission, shall be entertained by the State Commission unless the appellant has deposited fifty per cent of that amount in the manner as may be prescribed:

Provided also that no appeal shall lie from any order passed under sub-section (1) of section 81 by the District Commission pursuant to a settlement by mediation under section 80.”

In the light of the above decision, I am of the considered opinion that this writ petition is not maintainable. The petitioner is free to agitate all the contentions raised in this writ petition before the 1st respondent or before the Kerala State Consumer Redressal Forum, in accordance with law.

Granting liberty to raise all these contentions before the competent authority, this writ petition is dismissed.