CPC | Amendment To Class Action Consumer Complaint Can't Be Allowed Without Following Order 1 Rule 8(4): Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has recently held that in the case of a Class action Consumer Complaint, the amendments in the complaint cannot be allowed without following the mandate under Order 1 Rule 8(4) of CPC. Allowing the petition against an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), Justice C. Hari Shankar observed:"If at a later point of time, the complainant/complainants desires to abandon any part of the claim, Order I Rule 8(4) permits such abandonment provided, prior thereto, the Court issues notice, once again, to all persons so interested, i.e. all persons whose interest the original complaints purported to espouse, in the same manner as envisaged by Order I Rule 8 (2) i.e. either individually or, if that were not possible, by public advertisement."The respondent and other complainants had instituted a Consumer Complaint against the petitioner Puri Construction Pvt. Ltd. before the NCDRC under Section 12(1)(c)1 read with Section 21 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and Order I Rule 8 of the First Schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), as a representative class action complaint. It was clearly stated, in the complaint, that it was being filed for resolution and redressal of grievances of the 48 named complainants and also to address the common grievance of all the consumers affected by the price discrimination by the opposite party in the Aanand Vilas project.It was alleged, in the complaint, that the application form provided to the complainants and other investors in the petitioner's project did not contain relevant or substantial information about the project or the time within which it would be completed and that the buyers/investors were coerced to pay several charges such as Preferential Location Charges (PLC), car parking, club furnishing charges and fire fighting charges, which found no place in the initial application form provided to them, which they had filled in and submitted. Moreover, though the complainants had paid 80-90 % of the payments demanded by the petitioner, the complainants were forced to honour all the allegedly illegal demands of the petitioner, and the petitioner was allotting identical flats to outsiders at nearly half the price at which they were allotted to the complainants.It was submitted that the alleged acts constituted "unfair trade practices" within the meaning of Section 2(r)(1)(ix)4 of the Act, as the petitioner was effectively misappropriating the hard-earned money of the investors.The Court referred to Section 2(1)(b)(iv) of the Act, which defines "complainant" as meaning "one or more consumers where there are numerous consumers having the same interest". It also referred to Brigade Enterprises v. Anil Kumar Virmani, where commonality of interest has been held by the Supreme Court to be the sine qua non for allowing an application under Section 12(1)(c) of the Act, to be filed by one or more consumers on behalf of others not individually impleaded.The Court held that Section 12(1)(c) had been made applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the NCDRC, by Section 22(1) of the Act. Where, therefore, an application under Section 12(1)(c) stands allowed by the Consumer Forum, it amounts to lending, by the Consumer Forum, of its judicial imprimatur to the contention of the applicants/complainants before it that all persons whose cause the complainants seek to espouse are persons who are "so interested" in the complaint and the reliefs sought therein.Therefore, it was held that the respondents being, thus, "complainants" as defined in Section 2(1)(b)(iv) of the Act, Order I Rule 8 of the CPC becomes applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the consumer complaint filed by the respondents, by operation of Section 13(6) of the Act.Order 1 Rule 8(4)The Court held that the interpretative principle to be applied to Order I Rule 8(4) is that the same expression, used in different provisions of a statutory instrument, is required to be accorded the same meaning unless the provision in question unmistakably points to a contrary intent. It noted, "The applicability of this principle is augmented in a case where the expression figures in different parts of one statutory provision. Applying the above principle, the expression "so interested", figuring in the various clauses of Section 8(1) has to be accorded the same meaning in each clause. For that matter, in my opinion, the words also carry the same meaning as the words "so interested" as employed in Section 12(1)(c) of the Act, which is why Order I Rule 8 has, by Section 13(6) of the Act, been made applicable, mutatis mutandis, to class action complaints preferred under Section 12(1)(c)."On this issue, the Court also referred to the case of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, where it was held that,"It is one of the accepted rules of construction that the Court should presume that ordinarily the legislature uses the same words in a statute to convey the same meaning. If different words are used in...

CPC | Amendment To Class Action Consumer Complaint Can't Be Allowed Without Following Order 1 Rule 8(4): Delhi High Court

Shrutika Pandey

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