JUDGMENT
B.S. Yadav, J.
(1) The complaint filed by the present Appellant-Mrs. R.D. Chinoy before the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Adhra Pradesh at Hyderabad against the present Respondent, Central Bank of India, R.P. Road Branch, Secunderbad (for short the Bank) was dismissed by the State Commission on 6th April, 1991. Feeling aggrieved by that order Mrs. Chinoy has filed this appeal.
(2) In her complaint which was originally filed before the District Forum, Hyderabad Mrs. Chinoy had alleged that the balance outstanding in her overdraft account with the Bank on 27th October, 1979 was only Rs. 14,131.57 but the Bank had sold her whole lot of shares of about 30 companies which were pledged by her with the Bank. The Bank credited her overdraft account with a sum of Rs.36,000.00 only as sale proceeds of the shares. There was no necessity to sell the shares of all the 30 companies for liquidating the outstandings as on the date of sale the debit balance on that date could have been liquidated by sale of shares of few companies only and .thereby the Bank would have saved the remaining securities. The Bank has thus failed to act prudently while handling the shares/securities of its customers and has thus put her to heavy loss by sale of all her shares, of different companies. Further on verification of prevailing market rates from the’ list of Stock Exchange it was dear that the shares would have fetched more than Rs. 60,000.00 in the open market. On account of the fraudulent and deceitful methods of the Bank officials only a sum of Rs. 36,000.00 was credited by way of sale proceeds. On this account also she has been put to a loss of more than Rs. 20,000.00. This resultant loss also occurred due to the imprudent action and deceitful means adopted by the staff of the Bank.
(3) It was also mentioned in the complaint that on her complaint the Metropolitan Magistrate. Secunderabad had convicted (Mr. J. K. Digaria, who was arrayed as accused No.2 in the criminal case and sentenced him to suffer imprisonment for one year and also to pay Rs. 2,000.00 as fine. Mr. Digaria was the Sub-Accountant of the Bank at whose instance that fraudulent transaction had taken place. The conviction or otherwise of the delinquent officials of the Branch would not be a consolation for the monetary losses suffered by the customer. In spite of persuasion for over a decade and in spite of above conviction by the Court, the Bank was trying to shield the delinquent officials to absolve themselves indirectly to evade their responsibility to compensate the customer. According to her she has suffered monetary losses due to the negligent, imprudent and fraudulent actions of Cheating by the officials of the Bank while handling her pledged securities.
(4) As in the original complaint the complainant, Mrs. Chinoy had not quantified her claim, the District Forum asked her to quantify the damages. She claimed Rs. 3,20,000.00 as damages etc. together with interest from the date of complaint till the date of final payment. This amount was arrived at by her by stating that if her shares worth Rs. 14,131.57 were removed (i.e. sold) from the bunch of shares, the balance number of shares could have been retained and today the market value of those remaining shares would be approximately Rs. 1,20,000.00 excluding bonus shares and interest. According to her the bonus shares and other benefits received during the last eleven years would come to a further sum of Rs.1,00,000.00. Rs.1,00,000.00 was claimed for the mental torture, agony and other hardship and incidental charges like correspondence, xerox copies, transport, trips Bombay to meet the Chairman of the Bank.
(5) As the claim of the complainant exceeded the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Forum, it transferred the case to the State Commission.
(6) The respondent Bank filed its counter version averring that the complainant was availing the overdraft facility from the Bank during 1979. She had pledged some shares with the Bank for covering the overdraft facility. During November 1979 she authorised the Bank to sell the pledged shares and accordingly the shares were sold and the sale proceeds amounting to Rs. 36,000.00 were credited in the overdraft account of the complainant on 3rd November, 1979. After adjusting the overdraft amount of Rs. 15,631.57 as on the date of sale the account showed a credit balance of Rs. 20,368.43. The complainant had been regularly drawing amounts from the account from 3rd November 1979 to 28th January, 1980. On the last mentioned date, the accounts showed acredit balance of Rs. 4,422.02. On 30th January, 1980 the complainant drew a cheque for Rs. 5,311.40 on herself which was honoured and as such the account showed a debit balance of Rs. 889.30. It was alleged that the claim of the complainant was false. It was also stated that the judgment in the criminal case has been appealed against and the appeal was pending before the Metropolitan Session Judge, Hyderabad and as such the judgment of the Magistrate could not form the basis of the complaint.
(7) It may be mentioned that while the complaint was pending with the State Commission the appeal in the criminal case was accepted on 25th May, 1990 by the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Hyderabad and the conviction of sentence of the accused, Shri Digaria was set aside and he was acquitted of the offence under Section 420 under which the conviction had taken place. The other accused in the case was the Branch Manager of the Bank but he had already been acquitted by the Metropolitan Magistrate, Secunderabad.
(8) The State Commission vide impugned order held that the claim of the complainant Was state one as the shares were sold and the sale proceeds were credited to the overdraft account of the complainant on November 3, 1979. After lapse of 10 years the complainant had filed the complaint on February 9, 1990 with the District Forum, Hyderabad complaining the deficiency in service rendered by the Bank with respect to the sale of pledged shares. It was also noticed by the Commission that after the sale proceeds were credited in the complainant’s overdraft account on November 3, 1979 she had drawn the amounts from time to time from her overdraft account without any protest or demur and even on January 30, 1990 the complainant had issued a cheque for Rs. 5,311.40 and that cheque too was honoured by the Bank. It was observed by the Commission that if the complainant had any grievance against the sale of her shares by the Bank, she should have initiated legal action within three years from November 3,198.79. About the criminal case and the subsequent acquittal of Mr. Digaria, it was remarked that it was not a relevant circumstance in deciding the matter under the provisions of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short the Act). Consequently, the complaint was dismissed as it was filed more than 10 years after the cause of action had arisen.
(9) As noticed earlier the complainant is not satisfied with that order and has filed this appeal. The Appeallant-complainant argued her case personally while the Bank was represented by a counsel.
(10) Counsel for the Bank argued that the alleged deficiency in he tendering of ‘service’ was committed in November, 1979 and the complaint was filed in the beginning of 1990 and, therefore, it was clearly barred by limitation having been filed after more than a decade. He further argued that if the appellant-complainant takes the decision in the criminal case in which Mr. Digaria was convicted as the starting point of her cause of action for filing the complaint, the present complaint was premature because the Metropolitan Session Judge accepted the appeal of Mr. Digaria and acquitted him of the charge leveled against him and the appeal filed by the State against the acquittal of Mr. Digaria is pending in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh.
(11) The reply of the complainant to the above arguments was that the conviction or acquittal of Shri Digaria has no relevance to her complaint and her case is based upon the allegation of fraud leveled against the Bank. It was further urged by the complainant that law of limitation has not been made applicable to the complaints under the Act.
(12) We are not prepared to accept the submissions of the complainant that law of limitation is not applicable to cases under the Act. There is catena of decisions of this Commission to the effect that principles of Limitation apply to complaints filed under the Act. If a cause of action cannot be agitated in a Civil Court, by reasons of its having become barred by limitation, it cannot be allowed to be made a ground for getting relief before the Consumer Forums constituted under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. After the expiry of period of limitation, rights and obligations of the parties to a dispute get settled. It would be agaisnt principles of justice to unsettle such settled matters. Hence the State Commission in rightly came to the conclusion that the claim for damages made by the complainant under the Act for the alleged deficiency in service rendered by the Bank is very state.
(13) The petitioner has placed reliance upon M/s. Shiv Shanker Dal Mills etc. Vs. State of Haryana and Other etc.; 1980 S.C. 1037 and argued that the Bank which is nationalised one is bound to return what has been wrongly taken from her and which belongs to her. The relevant para of the judgment of the case reads as follows; “THEREcannot be any dispute about the obligation or the amounts since the market committees have accounts of collection and are willing to disgorge the excess sums. Indeed, if they file suits within limitation period, decrees must follow. What the period of limitation is and whether Art. 226 will apply are most as is evident from the High Court Judgment, but we are not called upon to pronounce on either point in the view we take. Where public bodies, under colour of public laws, recover people’s money, later discovered to be erroneous levies, the Dharma of the situation admits of no equivocation. There is no law of limitation, especially for public bodies, on the virtue of returning what was wrongly recovered to whom it belongs….”
(14) In the above cited case market fee had been raised by the market committees and the fee had been recovered by the committees. The Supreme Court held the ‘increase’ in the market fee as ultra vires and ordered the refund of the amount thus illegally recovered by the market committees. Nothing belonging to the complainant has been retained by the Bank. It is not the case of the complainant that anything belonging to her has been wrongly withheld by the Bank. In fact she is claiming damages for the alleged deficiency in the rendering of service by the Bank. Therefore, the above decision of the Supreme Court does not help the complainant.
(15) On merits also the complainant’s does not appear to have any case. Her case is that at the time the shares pledged by her with the Bank were sold by the Bank, the debit balance in her overdraft account was only Rs. 15,631 but the market value of the pledged shares was much more and therefore the Bank ought to have sold the shares only to the extent required for settlement of the overdraft account. According to her if the remaining shares had not been sold, the market value of those remaining shares now would be more than Rs. 1,31,000.00. The contention of the complainant has no force. From the documents on file it is clear that she had asked the bank to sell the shares in one lot. The Bank could not have acted in contravention of her instructions and thus could not sell only few shares out of the lot for adjustment of the overdraft account.
(16) The complainant’s contention before us was that she had asked the Bank to sell the share in one lot because at that time it was represented to her by Mr. Digaria, an employee of the Bank, that the debit balance in her overdraft account was about Rs. 35,000.00 and as she had confidence in him she had asked the Bank to sell the shares in one lot and had she known that the debit balance in her account was only about Rs. 15,000.00 she would not have asked the Bank to sell her shares in one lot. This submission of the complainant is clearly an afterthought. In the judgment of Metropolitan Session Judge as well as in the order of the State Commission, it has been discussed at length that after the sale proceeds of her shares were credited in the overdraft account of the complainant, there was credit balance in that account and the complainant utilised the balance by drawing cheques upto January, 1980. This fact clearly shows that the complainant knew that after the credit of sale proceeds of the shares in her account, there was credit of thousands of rupees in the account. The Bank has also filed copy of the Statement of account of the complainant to show that the findings of the Metropolitan Sessions Judge as well as the State Commission are based upon evidence. In the memorandum of appeal, the complainant has not given any explanation about withdrawal of more than 20 thousand rupees from that overdraft account on different occasions upto January 1980. The copy of accounts produced by the Bank does not reflect that the withdrawals were being made from the overdraft account against the deposit of F.D.Rs. In fact, this appears to have been cooked up by the complainant because on 6th July 1992 when this case was being heard the complainant was confronted by this Commission with the operation of her account upto January 1980.
(17) From the documents on the file it is also clear that in April. 1981 the complainant had written to the Bank expressing her gratitude for the service rendered to her. The complaint against Mr. Digaria and the Branch Manager of the Bank was filed later on after the loan to her son was refused by the Bank. By her letter dated 7th July, 1992 the complainant has tried to give explanation to the effect that the loan was not sanctioned to her son on account of ‘credit squeeze’. The fact remains that criminal complaint was filed by the complainant after the loan to her son was refused by the Bank.
(18) We do not want to dwell much on the merits of the case as it is liable to bedismissed on the short ground that it is a very stale one. For the reasons given above, we dismiss the appeal with costs which we assess at Rs. 1,000.00.