NEW DELHI, December 4: The Managing Director of a Connaught Place-based finance company has been sentenced to one year's imprisonment by a consumer court for duping over 30 investors of lakhs of rupees.Asking the police today to issue non-bailable warrants against Ram Lal Jain S.S.I. (India) Limited, the court dismissed the respondent's contention that accepting funds from public for fixed deposit schemes did not constitute a service under the law and therefore, fell outside the consumer court's jurisdiction.The investors had separately approached the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-III in Janakpuri demanding action against the finance firm for its failure to refund their money long after the maturity of its various fixed deposit schemes that they had invested in. The representative of the respondent had contended that several similar cases were already pending before the Delhi High Court and, therefore, the current cases be stayed till a judgement came through.``There is nothing on record to show if any appeal has been filed against our earlier order of July 17. Nor has the respondent obtained any stay order against the same. He should therefore be arrested for failing to comply with our order,'' the court ordered today.The complainants deposited money in the fixed deposited schemes floated by the SSI (India) Limited that promised an annual return of 18 per cent. Upon the maturity of these schemes, however, the company failed to either refund the principal or pay the interest, despite repeated reminders by the investors, prompting them to approach the consumer court for redressal.In its earlier order, the court said that accepting money under fixed deposit schemes by such companies indeed constitute a service under the Consumer Protection Act, since the money was used by the respondent for his business.``There is no substance in the company's argument that they did not render any service to the complainants and therefore they were not consumers,'' the court held. Among the complainants were Bimla and Ashish Rana, who had deposited over Rs 1 lakh in fixed deposits; Vandana, Archana Bhatia and V.N. Uniyal who deposited over Rs 17,000 each and Leena, who deposited Rs 37,000.The court had directed the finance company to refund their money with interest, alongwith Rs 1,000 as compensation and Rs 500 as costs of litigation to each of them. The case is scheduled to come up again for hearing in February next year.
