HARYANA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. BHALLE RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN our opinion the State Commission has taken too technical a view in dismissing the appeal preferred by the Revision Petitioner herein on the ground that the appellant was not present at the time when the appeal was taken up for hearing. As has been observed by us in similar other cases which have come up for consideration before us earlier, the Appellate Forum constituted under the Consumer Protection Act should not insist on the presence of the appellant nor an Authorised Representative of his at the time when the appeal is taken up for hearing. It may be that in this case the appellant is a well-to-do public sector organisation, but we can well conceive of many instances where appeals are preferred by poor and indigent consumers who may be residing far away from the headquarters of the State Commission and who may not be in a position to meet the expenditure involved in travelling to the capital city in the State. Hence it is necessary that the memorandum of appeal must be scrutinised by the appellate body and unless it is found that no prima facie case at all is made out in the appeal petition or that the appeal cannot be decided without hearing the appellant or his representatives, the State Commission should decide the appeal on the basis of records available before it, after hearing the respondent in case the respondent is present.

(2.) IN the present case it is manifest that complainant in whose favour the relief was granted by the District Forum is not a consumer at all since he was only an employee in the Haryana Electricity Board and the dispute raised by him was regarding the alleged failure to return certain compulsory deposit amount which he had made with the Electricity Board in his capacity as an employee. Hence, for the two fold reasons which are apparent on the face of the record, namely, that the complainant is not a consumer and the dispute raised by him is not a consumer dispute' as defined in the Act, the complaint should have been rejected out-right by the District Forum. Since that was not done and this appeal memorandum had clearly raised these points which were borne out by the records the State Commission should have allowed the appeal, set aside the order of the District Forum and dismiss the complaint petition.