VIJAY SINGH vs SARASWATI TRADERS

THIS appeal by the unsuccessful complainant is directed against the order of the District Forum, Karnal dismissing the complaint preferred by the appellant.

AS we are firmly inclined to uphold the order under challenge, it is unnecessary to tread the same ground in great detail in a judgment of affirmance. It suffices to mention that the allegation by the appellant was that the respondents had supplied him a defective second hand wrist watch in lieu of an allegedly new watch of Citizen make which had been purchased by him along with another person named Jai Krishan for Rs.570/- on the 26th of January, 1990. The grave men of the grievance in the complaint appeared to be that the appellant had in fact been cheated by the respondent - firm or its employees and partners. On notice being issued, the firm stand taken was that a defective watch had been brought for repairs which were duly executed for a charge of Rs. 57/- for which the relevant cash memo was issued. Any allegation of the sale or purchase of a foreign watch was wholly denied.

The District Forum on the basis of material before it first took notice of the fact that an earlier complaint against the respondent was made by Shri R.K. Rathaur, the father of the appellant which was dismissed by the District Forum on the 29th of August, 1992 which order had achieved finality. It was further noticed that a new case was now being sought to be set up by the appellant which lacked both validity or legitimacy. He further opined that as regards the allegation of cheating, the appropriate remedy for the customer is before a civil or criminal Court and certainly not a consumer dispute. Further it was held that the question whether the bill or cash memo was forged or otherwise, was too complicated to be gone into in the summary proceedings.

MR. Harinder Pal Singh, the learned Counsel for the appellant was wholly at a loss to lay any meaningful challenge to the triple ground on which the complaint stands rightly dismissed. It was sought to be argued that the bill/cash memo was a clever piece of forgery or fabrication in which the amount of 570/- rupees being the alleged price of the watch was merely shown as 57/- and the alleged number of the watch had been interpolated as 8905. The somewhat facile contention of the learned Counsel has only to be noticed and rejected. It is worth recording that on behalf of the complainant the relevant watch was sought to be produced and it had to be ultimately conceded on the appellant''s behalf that its number had not the remotely relevance or identity to the figure of 8905 on the basis of which an argument was sought to be primarily raised by the learned Counsel for the appellant. This apart, the submission only buttresses the finding of the District Forum that in case the primal grievance was with regard to cheating or the fabrication of false evidence than the consumer jurisdiction was not even remotely an appropriate Forum. The District Forum was right in its observations that the issues of forgery and fabrication were too complicated questions to be adequately resolved in the summary proceedings and even otherwise the proper resort would be to either an appropriate criminal or a civil Court as the appellant may be advised.

MR. Harinder Pal Singh had then attempted to contend that the dismissal of the earlier complaint was not relevant and in any case the actual or constructive principle of res-judicata would not be attracted. We are equally unable to see any merit in this submission. Without entering into the thicket of the legal question whether res-judicata is applicable in this context or otherwise it is plain that the submission has no legs to stand upon. The District Forum has primarily been influenced and in our view rightly that first the respondent was harassed by an earlier complaint and thereafter a new case was sought to be set-up which plainly cast a doubt on its veracity and the authenticity. We do not find the least infirmity in the observations of the District Forum in this context which equally merits confirmation. On behalf of the respondents it has been firmly stated that the proceedings herein were malafide and of a harassing nature. Our attention was drawn to the relevant part of the written statement and the somewhat sentimental submissions made by Shri Gopal Singh in this context. No other meaningful argument could be raised on behalf of the appellant and finding no merit in this appeal we dismiss the same with costs which are assessed at a sum of Rs. 300/- only. Appeal dismissed with costs.