IRSHAD HUSSAIN,PRESIDENT - (1.) ALL these appeals arise out of the cases, in which the respective contentions of the parties were common, hence these are taken together for disposal on merit.
(2.) ORDERS impugned in these appeals are dated 8.1.2007 passed by the District Forum, Nainital and were passed in Consumer Complaint Nos. 91/2004; 89/2004; 87/2004; 88/2004; 90/2004 and 86/2004. All the complainants in these cases are closely related and have their common residential address, as is evident from the description of the array of the parties. All the consumer complaints were partly allowed and postal department was directed to pay to each of these complainants, the amount shown deposited in their respective Recurring Deposit Account passbooks together with interest from the due dates @ 9% p.a. together with damages of Rs. 5,000 for mental agony and Rs. 1,500 towards cost. In each these cases, the amount found deposited in the ledger maintained by the postal department, was less than the entries of the deposit made in the passbooks and further that certain amounts were withdrawn, which were denied by the complainants.
(3.) THE District Forum, in four of the cases, also obtained expert report on handwriting from Government Lab and on that basis, opined that the admitted signatures of the complainants do not tally with the disputed signatures of the complainants on respective withdrawal forms and on that basis, rejected the postal department's contention in that regard. The recurring deposits were made at Head Post Office, Haldwani, where cases of embezzlement of the funds and the deposits of the investors by the employees, were alleged and departmental investigation was initiated. Since a big fraud was found involved, the case was reported to the CBI, Dehradun and after usual sanction, the investigation was started by CBI in that matter and the same is still pending for submission of report by the said agency. Postal department also took the plea that these complainants, despite request, failed to submit original passbooks for investigation and on perusal of the xerox copies of the passbooks, it was noticed that these bear large number of postal stamps of same dates, i.e., 23.5.2001 and 4.7.2002, while the actual dates of the deposit shown in the xerox copy of the passbooks were also interpolated. The matching entries of the deposits were not available in the ledger of the postal department and, as such, the contention was raised on behalf of the postal department that the matter being under investigation, so as to uncover the fraud committed in regard to the deposits, etc., the complainants were not entitled to be refunded the amount of deposits per their passbook entries on the ground of deficiency in service in making the refund of the money to the complainants.;