Star Paper Mills Ltd. vs BATLIBAI And CO.

THE petitioner company M/s. Star Papers Mills Ltd., is engaged in the manufacture of paper and pulp and they have their manufacturing unit at Saharanpur in U.P. With a view to check and control air pollution resulting from the manufacturing process carried on in the factory, the petitioner company invited offers for the design, manufacture, supply and installation of equipments such as Impingement Plate Scrubbers, Ventury Scrubber etc. for effectively reducting air pollution below a stipulated level. THE offer of the respondents for carrying out the work was accepted by the petitioner and a contract was entered into between the parties in January/February, 1988.

THE gist of the complaint is that the equipments supplied by the respondents turned out to be defective and that the stipulated performance parameters were not achieved and even though the petitioner company requested the Opposite Party to rectify the defects, their technicians/engineers were unable to remove the defects. THE petitioner thereupon preferred this complaint praying that the Opposite Party be directed to refund the price paid together with compensation for the loss and injury suffered by the company due to the negligence of the Opposite Party. The respondents have filed a detailed statement of objections where they have stoutly refuted the contention of the petitioner that the equipments supplied by them were defective. According to the respondents the petitioner company was itself to blame for the failure to achieve the desired standards of performance because the data furnished to them by the petitioner on the basis of which the equipments were designed and manufactured turned out to be materially incorrect. Various other pleas have been raised on the merits in the counter of the respondents but it is unnecessary for us to advert to those contentions in detail since we are inclined to uphold the preliminary objection raised by the respondents in the forefront of their counter statement that the equipments were obtained by the complainant for a ''commercial purpose'' and hence the petitioner company cannot be regarded as a ''consumer'' under the Act.

The contract entered into between the parties was a composite one for designing manufacturing and installing the equipments in the factory of the complainant''s company for controlling and reducing air pollution. The factory was engaged in the manufacture of pulp and paper on a very largescale and the contract for supply and installation of equipments had been entered into for the purpose of enabling the manufacturing process in the factory to be carried on without violating the norms relating to environmental pollution. The transaction of supply and installation of the equipments had thus a direct and close nexus with the commercial activity carried on by the petitioner company. The complaint of the petitioner is that there was a defect in the design, manufacture and installation of the machinery inasmuch as the performance parameters agreed upon namely, bringing down the suspended particulate matters value to less than 100 MG/NM3 on sustained basis in both the boilers had not been achieved. In other words, the complaint related to alleged defects in the goods supplied. Such a complaint can be filed before a Redressal Forum constituted under the Act only by a ''consumer''. The petitioner company having procured the equipments for a ''commercial purpose'' cannot be regarded as a ''consumer'' as already decided by this Commission in its majority order in M/s. Synco Textiles Pvt. Ltd. v. Greaves Cotton and Company Ltd. I (1991) CPJ 499 (NC)=F.A. No. 22 of 1989. and it is not competent to maintain the complaint under the Act The Original Petition has to fail on this short ground.

FOR the reasons aforementioned we dismiss this petition as not maintainable under the Act. There will be no order as to costs. Petition dismissed.