NANDED DIST. CENTRAL CO Vs. VEERBHADRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition has been filed under section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 against the order dated 21.11.2014, passed by the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (hereinafter referred to as 'the State Commission') in RP No. 27/2014, vide which, the said petition was allowed and the matter was remitted to the District Forum to consider the claim of the complainant for payment of outstanding dues. The said revision petition had been filed before the State Commission, challenging the order passed by the District Forum in Execution Application No. 03/2014 in Consumer Complaint No. 225/2005.

(2.) The facts of the case are that the respondent/complainant had made three fixed deposit, totalling 89,400/- with various branches of the District Central Cooperative Bank Nanded. However, the petitioner bank was unable to pay the amount of fixed deposit on maturity following some direction dated 20.10.2005 from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under section 35(A) of the Banking Regulations Act, 1949. As stated in the Memo of Petition, the said direction was issued by the RBI, as a number of deficiencies and irregularities in the working of the petitioner Bank were discovered by NABARD during their investigation. The complainant filed consumer complaint No. 225/2005 before the District Forum, seeking directions to the petitioner Bank to pay his money back. The District Forum vide their order dated 19.06.2006, directed the petitioners to repay the amount of deposit with interest @13.5% p.a. An appeal filed against the order of the District Forum was dismissed by the State Commission on 27.09.2013, following which, an execution application No. 03/2014 under section 27 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was filed by the complainant. As per order dated 03.05.2014, the execution proceedings were ordered to be closed, observing that the petitioner Bank had complied with the order in question. The District Forum observed that on the amount of fixed deposit, the direction was to pay simple interest only, and the same had been paid. Being aggrieved against the order of the District Forum, the complainant filed Revision Petition No. 27/2014 before the State Commission. As per the impugned order dated 21.11.2014, the State Commission gave the following directions:-

(3.) During hearing before us, the learned counsel for the petitioner stated that since they had already complied with the order of the District Forum in the consumer complaint, the State Commission had wrongly directed them to consider the claim of the complainant for outstanding dues by making deductions of the amount withdrawn by the complainant from the total amount, i.e., principal amount + interest, which was due on each day, when the complaint had withdrawn the amount from time to time. However, the said contention was opposed by the learned counsel for the respondent, saying that vide impugned order, the District Forum had only been directed to consider the claim of the complainant for outstanding dues. There was no need for the petitioner Bank to file the present revision petition, rather they should have waited for the decision of the District Forum, as per the directions issued by the State Commission.