SUPERINTENDENT OF POST OFFICES , POST MASTER , Jiten Mandal , SUB POST MASTER vs Sh Atish Das , Ashalata Das

THERE is delay of 24 days in filing of this revision petition. For the reasons stated in the application for condonation of delay filed by the petitioners, the delay in filing of this revision petition is condoned.

CHALLENGE in all the three revision petitions is to the common order dated 7.7.2010 passed by State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, West Bengal (''State Commission'' for short) by which the State Commission dismissed the appeals filed by the petitioners against the orders of the District Forum, Malda passed on 19.8.2009 accepting the three separate but similar complaints filed by the respondents. The facts and issues in each of the three complaints are identical. For the sake of convenience of reference, the facts of complaint No.65 of 2008 are being referred to in this order.

BRIEFLY stated, the case of the complainants is that an MIS account for Rs.30,000/- was opened on 24.7.2002 at Mokdumpur Post Office, Malda through a postal agent Kaushik Bhattacharya (since deceased) and according to the said MIS scheme, the complainants were entitled to get interest @ 225/- per month. On maturity on 24.7.2008, the complainants were also entitled to get 10% bonus in addition to the monthly interest of Rs.225/-. The complainants collected interest for Rs.225/- for every month through the aforesaid agent till 24.1.2007. On 24.1.2007, the said agent also handed over the MIS account passbook to the complainants. The complainants noticed some overwriting on some pages after scoring some of the entries. Sensing some foul play, one of the complainants, Atish Das met opposite party No.4 Jiten Mondal who was Sub Post Master of S.M. Pally sub post office, Malda in April 2007 for clarification. On verification, opposite party No.4 confirmed the genuineness and authenticity of the entries appearing in the passbook. Thereafter on 14.8.2007, the complainants withdrew monthly interest @ 225/- for 6 months collectively for the period from February 2007 to July 2007 and subsequently further withdrawal was made in the months of August and September on 4.10.2007. On 24.12.2007, when the complainants approached opposite party No.4 for withdrawal of monthly interest for the months of October, November and December 2007, opposite party No.4 refused to pay such interest on the ground that the interest was not tallying with the ledger and the MIS account passbook. The complainants thereupon sent a letter through their Advocate on 26.2.2008 stating all the facts with a request for making further payments but there was no response. In the circumstances, the complainants approached the District Forum with the complaints in question praying for direction to the opposite parties to pay maturity value of Rs.30,000/- along with bonus and interest in respect of the MIS account from the date of its maturity till realization of the full payment. They also prayed for monthly interest for the months from October 2007 to July 2008 along with interest @ 10%, compensation of Rs.50,000/- along with cost and other reliefs.

ON appraisal of the pleadings and the evidence placed by the parties before it, the District Forum by its order sated above accepted the complaints in each case. Aggrieved by the order of the District Forum, the OPs filed an appeal before the State Commission. Opposite party No.4 who had been impleaded by name also in addition to his impleadment by designation as opposite party No.5, filed separate appeals in his personal capacity and thus the State Commission disposed of all the six appeals by the aforesaid common order which upheld the orders of the District Forum.

WE have heard Ms. Sapna Chauhan, Advocate for the petitioners and Mr. S.K. Ghosh, Advocate for the respondents. It is the contention of learned counsel for the petitioners that the passbooks in the MIS accounts in question were tampered by overwriting on every page. Because of the collusion between the agent and the respondents and by using fraudulent means, the respondents obtained excess amount of interest in the 3 MIS accounts and the Fora below erred in holding that the respondents are entitled to get monthly interest @ Rs.225/- per month against the said MIS accounts without considering the pleadings and the evidence of the appellants. It was pointed out by her that the complainants had actually deposited a sum of Rs.3,000/- only in each of the MIS accounts but some corrections and manipulations were made by the respondents without any authentication by which the amount of deposit was shown as Rs.30,000/-. In support of her contention, learned counsel submitted that the respondents failed to produce the counterfoil of the pay-in-slip to prove their claim that they had deposited Rs.30,000/- at the time of opening the account. They also could not prove that the corrections in their passbooks were made by any postal authority.

PER contra, learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that similar contentions were raised by the petitioners before the Fora below but after taking into consideration the submissions of the parties and on appraisal of the documents placed on record, both the Fora below have returned their concurrent finding of fact in favour of the respondents. He submitted that unless some jurisdictional error is pointed out, this Commission cannot interfere with the concurrent finding of facts returned by the Fora below since there is no other legal issues involved in the matter. Placing reliance on the ratio of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Rubi (Chandra) Dutta Vs. United India Insurance Co. Ltd. [ II (2011) CPJ 19 (SC)], he pleaded that there is no case for interference with the impugned order by this Commission and hence the revision petitions be dismissed with costs.

WE have carefully considered the rival contentions. It is true that similar contentions were raised by the petitioners before the Fora below. We have also perused the documents placed on record particularly the copies of the savings bank ledger and the passbook in each case. Photocopy of the ledger account indicates the amount of deposit as Rs.30,000/- with subsequent entries of withdrawal of interest amount of Rs.225/- on different occasions. The entries are verified and attested by the Sub Post Master. In any case, it is to be noted that the savings bank ledger is maintained by post office and it remains in the custody of the department. In the circumstances, we cannot accept the contention of the counsel for the petitioners that the overwriting and the alleged corrections in the amounts have been carried out by the respondents. We find that the Fora below have already examined the contentions of the petitioners and verified the original ledger maintained by the petitioners to which the respondent could not have any access. The petitioners have failed to show any prima facie jurisdictional error in the impugned order and have only prayed for re-appreciating the evidence which has already been done by both the Fora below while returning their concurrent finding. In any case, the documents placed on record do not give us any reason to hold otherwise. In the circumstances, in line with the ruling of the Apex Court in Rubi (Chandra) Dutta (supra), we dismiss the revision petitions with the parties bearing their own costs.