NEELA VASANTRAJE Vs. AMOGH INDUSTRIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this Revision Petition, the complainant in Original Complaint No. PDF-64 of 1990 on the file of the District Consumer Redressal Forum, Pune has challenged the legality, regularity and correctness of the orders passed by the State Commission and the District Forum dismissing her complaint petition. The District Forum as well as the State Commission declined to adjudicate upon the merits of the complaint petition holding that when a company or a firm invites deposits from the public for the purpose of using the money for its business on promise of giving attractive rates of interest with security of investment and prompt repayment of the principal after the stipulated term, the depositor does not become a "consumer" under the Act and the company or firm is not providing a 'service' as contemplated under the Act and hence the Consumer Forums constituted under the Act have no jurisdiction to entertain and adjudicate upon such a dispute between the depositors and the company or firm.

(2.) The complainant is a middle class woman who had deposited her hard earned savings with the respondent-firm in response to an invitation for deposits issued by the firm promising good rate of interest and prompt repayment of principal and interest with full security for the investment. Even after her two deposits matured for payment, the opposite party did not repay to her the principal and interest and hence the complaint was filed by the revision petitioner before the State Commission, Maharashtra seeking the reliefs by way of compensation inclusive of Principal, interest and damages. The State Commission has taken the view that the opposite party had not undertaken to render any sort of service for consideration to the complainant and the transaction between the parties was only one of depositing money in Fixed Deposits for earning the interest. For coming to the said conclusion, the State-Commission lias relied on the dictionary meaning of the expression "financing" occurring in the definition of the word 'service' in Section 2(o) of the Act and held that financing would only mean to provide the capital to a person or an enterprise. In the option of the State Commission "merely returning the amount of deposit or payment of interest thereupon the transaction cannot be considered as a contract for hiring of a service". It is on the aforementioned ground, that the State Commission has affirmed the order passed by the District Forum holding that it had no jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the complaint filed by the revision petitioner.

(3.) We are unable to agree with the reasoning and conclusion concurrently recorded by the State Commission and the District Forum. In interpreting a social welfare legislation one should not make a narrow approach but should be guided by the principles of 'benevolent interpretation' which will help to promote and achieve the object and purpose of the Act namely, to protect the interests of consumers and suppress the evil sought to be remedied by the statute namely the unscrupulous exploitation of consumers. The main part of the definition of the expression 'service' is couched in the widest possible language and it expressly covers "service of any description" other than any service rendered 'free of charge' or 'under a contract of personal service'. The mere fact that a particular form of arrangement for provision of a facility does not fall within any of the specified categories enumerated in the inclusive part of the definition is absolutely of no consequence as long as the arrangement entered into between the parties is one of rendering 'service' as that expression is generally understood in common parlance. We are quite clear in our minds that when a company or a firm invites deposits on promise of attractive rates of interest and prompt repayment of principal and interest on the expiry of the stipulated period with full security for the investment in the shape of the assets of the company or firm, it is in essence of an offer by the company of providing to persons interested a safe avenue for investment of their funds with an assurance of prompt repayment and full security of investment. The consideration for the arrangement consists of the fact that the company or firm is enabled to use the funds deposited with it for the purposes of its business. Such a transaction in our opinion is clearly one of providing service for 'consideration' and the depositor is clearly a 'consumer' under the Act. In construing the scope of a social welfare enactment we have to take not of the current state of our society and the ground realities of life confronting the common people. To be offered a safe avenue for investing one's funds with assurance of reasonable return in the shape of interest and sound security for repayment is certainly to be regarded as a "service" under the contemporary conditions prevailing in our society. It is a well known fact which we cannot loose sight of that it is common practice with many hundreds of thousands of middle class families and retired pensioners to invest their funds in such schemes of deposits launched by companies and firms and it would not be right to take a hypertechnical view regarding such an arrangement and deny relief under the Act to these depositors in the event of the company or firm failing to discharge their obligations in the matter of repayment of the principal and interest on the basis of the arrangement of service entered into between the parties. The default on the part of the company or firm to carry out its obligations to repay the principal and/or interest constitutes, in our opinion 'deficiency' in service so as to warrant the filing of a complaint before a Consumer Forum seeking relief under the Act.