Satish Kumar vs State Bank of India

DELAY of 64 days in filing the present revision petition is condoned.

SHRI Satish Kumar, the original complainant before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Panipat (District Forum for short), having suffered two adverse orders passed in his complaint resulting in its dismissal both by the District Forum as well as the Haryana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Panchkula (State Commission for short) has filed this revision petition. Facts of the case, in brief, are that the petitioner-complainant had obtained an agricultural loan of Rs.2,40,000/- from the respondent-Bank for the purchase of a tractor. While the petitioner-complainant claims that the loan was given to him initially at the interest rate of 14% per annum, the rate of interest was to be increased or decreased from time to time as per the guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India. Though he had deposited a sum of Rs.3,04,500/-, yet the Bank had not squared up his loan account, so he enquired about the matter and was surprised that the Bank had reflected a balance of Rs.61752.71 as due from him. Apprehending that the Bank have not lowered the rate of interest as per the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India, he made a representation, which met only with lip sympathy. Contending that he suffered financial loss on account of respondent/OP/Bank not adhering to the floating rate of interest, he filed a complaint before the District Forum. The District Forum after considering the evidence produced before it and hearing the arguments of the parties dismissed the complaint, holding as under :- " ... In view of the above observation, we are having a considered opinion that OP had advanced loan on interest as agreed between the parties and accordingly as per circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India from the year 2003, interest rate was reduced w.e.f. 31.12.2003 from 14.28% to 10.50% and so on. If the interest rate was reduced in the year 2003, the complainant cannot take benefit of the circular effective date of which is from the year 2003 and even in the year 1999 when loan was advanced to the borrower on the same rate of interest. The complainant has placed on the file handwritten rate of interest, copy of which is Ex.C10 but he failed to satisfy from which circular the mentioned rate of interest was prevailing. Hence, in view of the above discussion and looking into the case law referred to above, we are having a considered opinion that OP was right in charging interest at the agreed rate on the loan advanced to the borrower and further rate of interest was changed and lowered down according to the circulars issued by the Reserve Bank of India. In view of the above discussion, the present complaint does not succeed. We hereby dismiss the present complaint with no order as to costs. "

Aggrieved thereupon, the petitioner-complainant by filing an appeal approached the State Commission, who vide the order impugned again dismissed his complaint firstly on the ground of limitation for a delay of 403 days in filing the appeal and also on merit. Thus, the present revision petition has been filed against the concurrent findings of the two fora below.

WE have heard Shri Satish Kumar, the petitioner in person. With regard to the belated filing of the appeal before the State Commission, his only explanation is that he belongs to a rural area and the procedural requirement of filing appeal etc. was not fully known to him. On the merits of the case, he has submitted that the State Commission has misdirected itself in dealing with the matter, inasmuch as it has held that the respondent/OP/Bank was fully justified in charging the interest at the rate of 14.28% with half yearly rests as per the terms of the agreement dated 18.11.2002 ignoring the factual position that the respondent/OP/Bank itself in their reply have stated that they have varied the rate of interest as per the Reserve Bank of India guidelines but only subsequent to 2003. There is no reference to the non-charging of interest as per the Reserve Bank of India guidelines for the period prior to 2003. He further contends that the deficiency on the part of the respondent/OP/Bank is evident from their own admission that they have subsequently refunded excess interest amounting to Rs.7909.90 charged from him. He, therefore, submits that the order passed by the State Commission is totally erroneous on the facts of the case and should be set aside. After having perused the orders passed by the District Forum and the State Commission, we are of the considered view that the dismissal of the complaint on the ground of gross delay of 403 days in filing the appeal has been adequately dealt with and we agree with the view taken by the State Commission that the petitioner/complainant was not able to show sufficient cause to condone the delay and the appeal was to be dismissed on that ground alone. The other contention that the State Commission erroneously held that the rate of interest to be charged from the petitioner/complainant was a fixed rate and not floating, there is no need for us to deal with the same and it would make no difference to the outcome of the revision petition as even otherwise the District Forum, who has dealt with the factual aspect, has dismissed the complaint.

RESULTANTLY , the revision petition is dismissed.