Consumer forum fines builder for misleading it

Sodhi had approached the state forum and then the national forum after the district forum had ruled in favour of the 20 complainants.

The 20,who had invested in Sodhi’s Mira Road building,had approached the district forum after Sodhi failed to issue a permanent possession and occupation letter to purchasers.

Separate complaints were filed against Sodhi,each mentioning the same grievance that two of the most essential conditions in the registered agreement were not fulfilled.

The district forum ruled in favour of the complainants and directed Sodhi to issue possession letter and occupation certificate to all the complainants and execute the conveyance deed of the land.

Sodhi then moved the state commission. However,mid-way through the process,he decided to abstain from the appeal,claiming the petitioners had approached the civil court against him and that the case had been referred to a Lok Adalat.

With no papers submitted to the commission and Sodhi’s sudden decision to stay away from the state commission,an ex-parte order was passed,dismissing his appeal.

Sodhi then approached the National Commission,citing the same ground and challenged the State panel order on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction to pass an order in a matter pending in the civil court.

He,however,did not inform the Commission that his appeal had been dismissed twice by the State commission,once on merit and the second time as he and his lawyer had not attended proceedings.

Calling it a typical example of “how a litigation proceeds and continues,and in the end only wrongdoers benefit”,the National Commission observed that the “petitioner has deliberately and with ulterior motive tried to mislead this Commission”.

The Commission chided Sodhi for having grossly abused the process of law. “…We dismiss the 20 petitions with costs of Rs 10,000 each (in total of Rs 2 lakh),” the Commission headed by presiding member V B Gupta observed.