State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
Smt. Rashmi Gupta vs Dee Dee Motors (P) Ltd. on 12 July, 2010
STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION UTTARAKHAND
DEHRADUN
FIRST APPEAL NO. 114 / 2010
Smt. Rashmi Gupta W/o Sh. Rajesh Gupta
R/o Banwari Lal Gher, Ramghat
Haridwar, District Haridwar
......Appellant / Complainant
Versus
1. Dee Dee Motors (P) Ltd.
1-C, Tyagi Road
Dehradun
2. Hindustan Motors Ltd.
Kolkata through General Manager
......Respondents / Opposite Parties
Sh. Gopal Narsan, Learned Counsel for the Appellant
Sh. M.K. Kohli, Learned Counsel for Respondent No. 1
None for Respondent No. 2
Coram: Hon'ble Justice Irshad Hussain, President
C.C. Pant, Member
Smt. Kusum Lata Sharma, Member
Dated: 12/07/2010
ORDER
(Per: Justice Irshad Hussain, President):
This is complainant's appeal against the order dated 31.03.2010 passed by the District Forum, Dehradun, partly allowing consumer complaint No. 01 of 2008, whereby the opposite parties were directed to refund sum of Rs. 10,300/- paid by the complainant towards repair charges of her vehicle (Ambassador car No. UA-08G-1400) during the warranty period of one year together with litigation expenses of Rs. 2,000/-. The District Forum did not accept the contention of the complainant that the vehicle purchased from the opposite party No. 1 on 27.06.2006 suffered from manufacturing defects and on that account, the complainant was entitled to either have the price of the 2 vehicle refunded with interest or to replace the vehicle purchased with a new one, in addition to the amount of damages claimed by her.
2. The contentions raised by the learned counsel for the parties give rise to following point for determination of this appeal on merit:
"Whether the Ambassador car purchased by the complainant from the opposite party No. 1 on 27.06.2006 suffered from manufacturing defects, as alleged by the complainant and the District Forum fell in error in recording a contrary finding that the vehicle was not having any manufacturing defect and the complainant was neither entitled to have the vehicle replaced by a new one, nor to have the price of the vehicle paid refunded to her?"
3. At the outset, it need to be stated that as per the settled law, onus to prove manufacturing defect in the vehicle lies on the complainant and further that expert evidence need to be produced to prove manufacturing defect in a vehicle. This legal preposition has also recently been reiterated by the Hon'ble National Commission in the matter of Classic Automobiles Vs. Lila Nand Mishra and another; I (2010) CPJ 235 (NC). Learned counsel for the complainant drew our attention to two certificates dated 01.07.2009 and 12.07.2009 given by Hemkund Motors, Court Road, Devpura, Haridwar and A to Z Automobiles, New Haridwar Road, Roorkee respectively in respect of complainant's Ambassador car No. UA-08G-1400, to bring home his point of view that these certificates are pieces of expert evidence on the point that the said vehicle suffered from manufacturing defects and the District Forum was not at all justified in not placing reliance on the expert evidence relied upon by the complainant and wrongly observed that these certificates do not at all prove that the vehicle in question suffered 3 from manufacturing defects and thereby went on to reject the complainant's claim for major reliefs. Having given our thoughtful consideration to the submission of the learned counsel, we may state at the outset that the submission of the learned counsel carry no conviction and the District Forum was fully justified in not relying upon these certificates to accept the complainant's claim that her Ambassador car suffered from manufacturing defects. The reasons being that these certificates were not issued by technical experts and further that both the service stations were not authorised service stations of any of the brand vehicles and none of these service stations could have been taken to have employed any technical expert in connection with servicing of any brand vehicle such as Ambassador car. Therefore, the observation in the first mentioned certificate that the fuel consumption of the vehicle was not upto the mark; that the vehicle required frequent repairs to have the alignment corrected and that due to alignment, the vehicle's tyres worn out frequently, could not be given any technical acceptance to find manufacturing defect in the vehicle. Likewise, the second certificate would also be no avail on the basis of the observation that fuel consumption was not upto the mark; that the vehicle had alignment problem and that the clutch plate usually went defective. In short, both these certificates put forward as expert evidence to prove manufacturing defect in the vehicle, do not at all serve the purpose and the District Forum also rightly took a similar view which, therefore, does not suffer from any factual and legal infirmity.
4. Per contra, the expert evidence adduced by the opposite parties in the form of Technical Inspection Report dated 16.11.2009 of Sh. Anil Singh, a B. Tech qualified and licensed surveyor/loss assessor and investigator/valuer, prove beyond doubt that the vehicle in question did not have any manufacturing defect despite the same had 4 run 56114 kms. till 07.11.2009 and its overall condition was satisfactory keeping in view the various parameters as regards its bushes, ball joints, rack and pinion (steering system), leaf spring, alignment and sound from engine, gear box and differential, were normal and satisfactory and further that normal average of the vehicle came to be observed as 11-13 kms./litre by following recommendations and conditions applicable thereto. Sh. Anil Singh has also filed his affidavit to prove his report dated 16.11.2009 together with photographs of the vehicle taken and as submitted by the learned counsel for the opposite party No. 1, the District Forum had factual and valid legal reasons to place reliance on the expert evidence of the opposite parties to record a categorical and definite finding that the vehicle in question was not having manufacturing defects. Further, the opposite party No. 1 had attended to the routine services and repairs as and when the vehicle was brought for this purpose and services / jobs were done to the satisfaction of the complainant and her representatives, who have on all the occasions, signed the service job cards on getting fully satisfied with the repair work undertaken by the opposite party No.1. The detail of the various service job cards and the repairs undertaken has been given by the District Forum in its detailed and elaborated order, which we need not reproduce here, keeping in view the fact that no manufacturing defect in the vehicle was ever detected and minor repairs, which do occur in every vehicle, were fully attended thereto and the jobs were properly done to the full satisfaction of the complainant. Here, it shall not be out of place to mention that the vehicle was purchased on 27.06.2006 and on the date of the inspection by the expert of the opposite parties, the vehicle had run 56114 kms., meaning thereby that at an average, the vehicle had run more than 60 kms. per day and despite so much run, the vehicle was not found to have any manufacturing defect in it. This aspect of the matter also belie the claim of the complainant and 5 in the totality of the circumstances of the case, the District Forum was fully justified in not accepting the complainant's claim about manufacturing defects in the vehicle and only found it proper to direct refund of the expenses of the repairs etc. realized from the complainant during the warranty period of the vehicle.
5. For the reasons aforesaid, the appeal being devoid of merit, is liable to be dismissed, which we hereby do. No order as to costs.
(SMT. KUSUM LATA SHARMA) (C.C. PANT) (JUSTICE IRSHAD HUSSAIN) K