PREMIER AUTOMOBILES LTD Vs. MANOJ RAMACHANDRAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Consumer Protection Act was enacted by Parliament in December, 1986 "to provide for the protection of the interests of consumers and for that purpose to make provision for the establishment of Consumer Councils and other authorities for the settlement of consumers disputes and for matters connected therewith".

(2.) Chapter III of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (herein after called the 'Act') consisting of Sections 9 to 27 contains the provisions relating to the establishment of Consumer Redressal Agencies, their jurisdiction, powers and procedure etc. This Chapter was brought into force with effect from July 1,1987 as per Notification S.O. 568(E) issued by the Government of India. Under the scheme of the statute a three tier hierarchy of quasi judicial authorities is to be set up with the District Forum at the base level, the State Commission at the intermediate level and the National Commission at the apex level. It was laid down in Section 11 of the Act as originally enacted that the District Forum shall have jurisdiction to entertain complaints where the value of the goods or services and the compensation, if any, claimed is less than rupees one lakh. Similarly, under Section 17 which deals with the jurisdiction of the State Commission, it was provided in the Act as originally passed that the State Commission shall have jurisdiction to entertain complaints where the value of the goods or services and compensation, if any, claimed exceeds rupees one lakh but does not exceed rupees ten lakhs.

(3.) The above two Sections amongst some other provisions of the Act were amended by the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Ordinance, 1993 with effect from June 18,1993. By Clause (9) of the Amending Ordinance, the words "does not exceed rupees five lakhs" occurring in Section 11 of the Principal Act were substituted for the words "is less than rupees on lakh". Likewise by Clause (14) of the Amending Ordinance, the words "five lakhs but does not exceed rupees twenty lakhs" were substituted for the words "one lakh but does not exceed rupees ten lakhs" occurring in Section 17 of the Principal Act. The result was that by virtue of the aforesaid amendments introduced in the provisions of Sections 11 and 17 of the Act with effect from 18.6.1993, the jurisdiction of the District Forum got enhanced so as to enable it to entertain all claims not exceeding rupees five lakhs in value and the jurisdiction of the State Commission became enlarged so as to make it competent to entertain all claims which have a valuation above rupees five lakhs but not exceeding rupees twenty lakhs. The above provisions contained in the Ordinance were re-enacted verbatim in the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act, 1993 with retrospective effect from 18.6.1993.