- (1.) THE above three complaints have been filed by the members of one family against the same OPs. Since, in all these complaints similar questions of law and facts are involved, so we are deciding all these three complaints by this single judgment.
(2.) THE facts are culled out from complaint No. 23 titled Col. Pritam Singh v. Castle Concrete Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., etc., according to which complainants who are husband -wife are senior citizens and complainant No. 1 is a veteran of World War -II and also served the Indian Army. M/s. Castle Concrete Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. -OP No. 1 which is a private limited company registered with the Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh Development Authority as a developer had floated a scheme offering a 1443 sq.ft. flat in their project namely Balaji Enclave in Barotiwala, Himachal Pradesh, at a price of Rs. 24,53,100. The most important and attractive part of the scheme was that the OPs had claimed and promised to give guaranteed returns for a period of five years. The guarantee was in two partsfirstly, OPs guaranteed that they would pay a monthly rental amounting to Rs. 26,000 p.m. till September,2009, Rs. 26,500 from October,2009 to September, 2010 and Rs. 27,000 per month thereafter till the completion of five years period. Secondly, the opposite parties guaranteed that they would buy back the said flat from the complainant after a period of five years at a price of Rs. 31,85,000. Allured by the attractive scheme of OPs, complainants decided to invest their entire life savings in the scheme and purchased flat No. 402 in Block A on the Fourth Floor in the Project termed as Balaji Enclave in village Tipra, Barotiwala, HP. After negotiation, OPs agreed to sell the said flat to complainants at a rate of Rs. 24,53,100. The complainants also purchased a covered parking at a cost of Rs. 1.00 lac, thus, the total cost of apartment came to Rs. 25,53,100, which was paid to OPs as under: Date Bank and Cheque No. Amount 29.9.2007 State Bank of India, Sector -22C, Chandigarh vide Cheque No. 097938 dated 29.9.2007 Rs. 15,00,000 29.9.2007 State Bank of India, Sector -22C, Chandigarh vide Cheque No. 019119 dated 29.9.2007 Rs. 3,00,000 29.9.2007 Cash Rs. 7,49,350 3.10.2007 State Bank of India, Sector -22C, Chandigarh vide Cheque No. 920600 dated 3.10.2007 Rs. 3750 Total : Rs. 25,53,100
(3.) IT was further averred that both parties entered into an agreement on 30.9.2007 which was drawn by OPs according to their requirement wherein the price of the flat was wrongly shown at a reduced price. The complainants objected to this error on receiving copy of the agreement but OPs refused to correct the error by saying that the same would be corrected at a later date. A copy of the agreement is Annexure C -3. The said agreement gave the details of buy back -cum -rental plan in its para -5. It was also mentioned in Clause 28(a) that the OPs would complete the construction of the flat within a period of 18 months from the date of signing the agreement which was signed and executed in the Chandigarh office of OPs. It was next averred that the OPs had given post -dated cheques to complainants for all payments of rent and the final buy -back price which was to be paid after a period of five years. The detail of all these cheques was given in the agreement itself. The cheques for rents were deposited by the complainants on time and they were cleared by the bank. However, in October, 2008 the complainants found that no construction had taken place at the site since the time they had paid for the flat. They also realized that the OPs did not intend to do any construction on the site and after five years they would have nothing in their hands as the cheques issued by OPs had started bouncing, hence, they requested OPs to refund their money vide application dated 8.9.2008.;