- (1.) THIS is an appeal against the order of the U. P. State Commission Lucknow of the 20th of March, 1989 on the preliminary objections challenging the jurisdiction of the State Commission to entertain and hear the complaint and the judgement of the same Commission of 13. 04. 1989 on the merits of the reliefs including the compensation granted to the Respondent.
(2.) THE learned counsel for the Appellants submitted that the Appellant was (i) a statutory body which did not undertake the activity of sale of goods or rendering service for a consideration, (ii) that it was engaged in the transfer of immovable property either in the shape of plots or in the form of built-up houses and these activities were not within the purview of the Consumer Protection Act. (iii) that the Consumer Protection Act, having been processed by the Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies did not extend to the Appellant inasmuch as its activities were not within the purview of the Ministry of Food and Civil Suppplies and (iv) the services rendered by the Appellant did not fall under the definition of service' given in section 2 (o) of the Consumer Protection Act. We have gone through the grounds of appeal carefully and also considered the objections taken on the question of jurisdiction by the learned counsel. The State Commission has examined elaborately and ably all the preliminary objections taken by the Appellant herein and Opposite Party before the State Commission. The mere fact that Housing and Development Board is a statutory body does not mean that it is outside the purview of the Consumer Protection Act. The Housing and Development Board is engaged in serving the public in the matter of providing housing by acquisition of land, development of sites construction of houses thereon and allotment of plots/houses to the public. The Board is clearly engaged in rendering service for consideration to the public and therefore those who are allowed plots/houses from the Board are clearly consumers falling Within the definition in S. 2 (d) (ii) of the Act. Again under Sec. 2 (o)of the Act the definition of the term 'service' is very comprehensive :it means "service of any description" including banking, financing, insurance, transport, processing, supply of electrical or other energy, entertainment etc. This leaves no room for doubt that the type of service which the Board renders to the public for a consideration is clearly covered by Section 2 (o ). It is also evident from Section 2 (o) that even though the Act has been processed by the Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies of the Government of India, the Parliament has enacted it and there is no provision in the Act limiting it to subjects under the control of the Civil Supplies Ministry. We, therefore find no merit in the arguments advanced by appellant's counsel on the point of jurisdiction of the State Commission and we confirm the finding of the Commission. We find that in the appeal, objections have been taken on the grounds of jurisdiction, but no attack has been made on the reliefs granted including the compensation allowed by the State Commission except that the Respondent consumer had not himself filed the complaint before the State Commission. The learned counsel for the Appellant submitted that the State Commission had placed onerous and unfair obligations on the appellant requiring it to provide an alternate plot at the original colony i. e. Vikas Nagar itself within a period of three months from 13. 04. 1989, that the plot should be about 330 sq. mtrs. in area and that it should be of the choice of the Respondent Complainant, and that for the delay in giving possession of the plot after having received the price of the plot, interest should be paid to him @18% on the amount deposited and damages of Rs. 1,009/- per month as set out in the operative part of the judgement. The learned counsel for the appellant submitted that his client was making every effort to allot an alternate plot to the Respondent but it has its own limitations in doing so and that orders of the State Commission were unduly onerous to the Board. The stay order of 7-1-88 of the High Court was not produced before us and the learned counsel however gave the gist thereof which indicated that the stay was only in respect of construction of any buildings on the plot. The learned counsel could not explain as to why the Board had not given respondent the possession of the plot when the order of the High Court was only in respect of construction of buildings thereon nor as to why no action was taken to get the stay order vacated. He also could not justify the Avas Parishad receiving full amount from the Respondent after the receipt of the stay order of the High Court. We do not find any merit in the technical objection that the Respondent Garima Shukla has not fileda proper power of attorney in the Court, keeping in view that she had filed the power of attorney with the appellant for registering the plot in favour of allottee and had signed the sale deed as the power of attorney holder, made the payment to the Appellant for the plot and executed various legal formalities in the capacity.
(3.) WE, therefore, upheld the judgement of the State Commission regar-eing reliefs granted to the Respondent except to the extent of making a slight modification by our directing that in case all the plots in the original area have been allotted to others a plot in an adjacent area according to the choice of the Respondent, may be allotted to him. In the result, subject to our above observations regarding the allotment of the plot to the Complainant, the appeal is dismissed. The parties will bear their respective costs. .;