RAJAN JOSHI Vs. HARSH KAKKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE complainant, Ranjan Joshi, entered into an agreement dated 11.04.2015 with the opposite party (OP) who is a builder/contractor, for the construction of his house at Almora, Uttarakhand at a cost of 20,91,795/ -. The time laid down for the construction of the said house was seven months, i.e., upto November 2005. It was also laid down that if the OP contractor failed to carry out the job within the time schedule, he shall be liable to pay a penalty of 1% of the cost of the construction per week of delay. If the construction of the house was made in time, an incentive bonus of 20,000/ - was to be paid to the OP builder. The approved building plans were provided to the builder and the payment schedule was also laid down. An advance payment of 2 lakh was made at the time of signing the agreement on 11.04.2005 and by July 2005, a payment of 5,00,180/ - was made to the OP. In August 2005, a change was requested in the roof configuration to provide a covered terrace. According to the complainant, the OP accepted the change and stated that this shall not affect the time schedule for completion. A further payment of 3,82,000/ - was made during August 2005. During the period December 2005 to March 2006, another payment of 6.5 lakh was made, making it a total of 20,67,180/ -. It is alleged that very little work was done during this period, rather the OP gave a written schedule for completion of the project by June 2006 and also requested for more funds. The complainant made a further payment of 4,45,000/ - by May 2006 taking the cumulative total to 26,12,180/ -. However, the contractor stopped the work on the site completely in June 2006 and asked for more funds. There was correspondence between the complainant and OP regarding increase in the scope of the work and more funds required. On 27.07.2006, the OP wrote a letter to the complainant saying that the entire construction work shall be completed by 30.09.2006. He also stated in that letter that if the construction was not done by then, he shall pay 1% of the total cost of construction per week as penalty with effect from 15.10.2006. The complainant says that the OP did not complete the work by then and ultimately, he had to move in the unfinished house by the end of January 2007. He noticed various defects and deficiencies in the house which were not removed despite giving another chance to the builder, and ultimately, these had to be rectified by engaging the services of some other people and spending extra money for the same. The complainant says that he is a management professional based in Mumbai and is engaged in consultancy work all over India. Due to the non -completion of the construction of the house in time, he had to undergo a lot of mental harassment and agony and his professional work also suffered. The complainant alleged that he had made total payment of about 43 lakhs approximately to the contractor but despite that, there were lot of deficiencies/shortcomings in the house. The complainant filed the instant consumer complaint, demanding a sum of 1,11,47,000/ - from the OP as compensation, consisting of the following details: -

(2.) THE OP builder contested the complaint by filing a written statement in which he stated that there were many disputed question of facts involved in the present case which could not be gone into in the present summary proceedings before this Commission and hence, the complaint was not maintainable. He also took the plea that the house in question was required to be completed by November 2005, but the complaint was filed in April 2008 and hence, the same was time barred. The main plea taken by the OP, however, is that ever since the signing of the agreement with the complainant, the plan of construction and scope of work kept on changing from time to time. The complainant had demanded additional covered area and more amenities and hence, the agreed time schedule could not be followed. The complainant got a revised plan and elevation on 25.09.2009 from an architect Naina Borkar for one more floor. The tiles ordered by the complainant arrived on 15.12.2006 and the details of the furniture etc. were given by the wife of the complainant in December 2006. The OP has maintained that the complainant was always fully aware of the financial and physical status of the project and he never took any objection when the initial payment of 20,91,795/ - was exceeded. He never raised any question of amount being more than double of the initial amount agreed.

(3.) IN reply, the learned counsel for the OP maintained that the delay occurred due to increase in the scope of work and non -payment of his bills by the complainant in time.