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Rameshwar Prasad Shrivastava & Ors. v. Dwarikadhis Projects Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 1167Decided 7 Dec 2018
Civil Appeal No. 4802 of 2018
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit · Justice R. Subhash Reddy

Background

A group of flat buyers in a Haryana housing project ("Aravali Heights") did not receive possession within the promised three years, and found the project's basic infrastructure (roads, water, sewerage, electricity) incomplete. Nineteen buyers jointly approached the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission seeking delayed-possession penalties, refunds, and completion of the project, but the Commission dismissed their complaint (and a similar one by four other buyers) as not maintainable, relying on its own larger-bench ruling that a joint complaint under Section 12(1)(c) of the Consumer Protection Act must be filed on behalf of all similarly affected consumers, with the court's permission and following the class-action procedure under Order I Rule 8 CPC, not just by a subset of them.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the National Commission, holding that Section 12(1)(c) and Section 13(6) of the Act must be read together, and that any complaint filed by "one or more consumers" on behalf of a class must follow the Order I Rule 8 CPC procedure (including permission and representative notice to the whole class): a complaint cannot be filed for just a subset of similarly affected buyers to sidestep this requirement. Since the appellants expressly declined to undertake that formal class-action procedure (citing cost), the Court upheld the dismissal for non-maintainability. However, recognising that pleadings and evidence had already been fully exchanged over three years, it allowed the buyers to pursue their claims afresh before the appropriate State Consumer Commission, continuing from the same stage reached before the National Commission rather than starting over.

Lesson Learnt

When several people share the exact same grievance against the same builder or company, consumer law requires them to follow the formal class-action procedure (seeking permission and representing the whole affected group) rather than simply joining as a handful of co-complainants, skipping that formality can get even a genuine complaint thrown out on a technicality.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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