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2010 (5) Supreme 376
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly, JJ.
Secretary, Board of Secondary Education, Orissa — Appellant
versus
Santosh Kumar Sahoo and another — Respondents
Civil Appeal No. 4967 of 2010
(Arising out of SLP(C) No. 13872 of 2009)
Decided on : 7-7-2010
Facts of the Case :
Whether the District Forum, had the jurisdiction to entertain and allow the complaint filed by respondent No.1 for correction of his date of birth recorded in the matriculation certificate and whether the National Commission committed an error by refusing to consider report dated 31.10.1995 submitted by Deputy Secretary of the appellant Board on the issue of eligibility of respondent No.1 to take supplementary examination are questions which arose for consideration in present appeal. Respondent No.1 appeared in the supplementary examination conducted by the appellant in 1983 as an Ex-student of G. Udayagiri Hubback High School. In the Admission Card and Provisional Certificate issued by the appellant, the date of birth of respondent No.1 was shown as 10.05.1964. However, in the matriculation certificate his date of birth came to be recorded as 10.05.1961.
Findings of the Court :
All the consumer forums failed to consider the issue of maintainability of the complaint in a correct perspective. The District Forum, the State Commission and the National Commission also overlooked that despite repeated communications sent to him, respondent No.2 did not produce original documents including the admission register so as to enable appellant to verify the correctness and genuineness of the assertions made by respondent No.1 regarding his correct date of birth. The report of the Deputy Secretary substantially aggravated suspicion that respondent No.1 and respondent No.2 were hand in gloves in allowing former to take the supplementary examination on the basis of documents which belonged to someone else. In the memo of appeal filed against the order of the District Forum, appellant had made a specific mention of the report of the Deputy Secretary but the State Commission ignored the same. The National Commission brushed aside the report of Deputy Secretary by describing it as an after thought ignoring that the same was based on a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the documents made available by the authorities of the concerned schools.Its failure to do so resulted in miscarriage of justice. Impugned order of National Commission as also the orders passed by the District Forum and State Commission were set aside and matter was remitted to the District Forum for fresh adjudication of the complaint filed by respondent No.1.Appeal was allowed.
Result : Appeal allowed.
JUDGMENT
G.S. Singhvi, J. —
1.Leave granted.
2.Whether the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Phulbani (for short, ‘the District Forum’) had the jurisdiction to entertain and allow the complaint filed by respondent No.1 for correction of his date of birth recorded in the matriculation certificate and whether the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (for short, ‘the National Commission’) committed an error by refusing to consider report dated 31.10.1995 submitted by Deputy Secretary of the appellant Board on the issue of eligibility of respondent No.1 to take supplementary examination are the questions which arise for consideration in this appeal.
3.Respondent No.1 appeared in the supplementary examination conducted by the appellant in 1983 as an Ex-student of G. Udayagiri Hubback High School. In the Admission Card and Provisional Certificate issued by the appellant, the date of birth of respondent No.1 was shown as 10.05.1964. However, in the matriculation certificate his date of birth came to be recorded as 10.05.1961. Upon receipt of the matriculation certificate, respondent No.1 contacted Headmaster of the school (respondent No.2) who is said to have assured him that he will write to the appellant for making necessary correction. Thereafter, respondent No.1 met the concerned officers of the appellant and handed over the matriculation certificate and letter written by respondent No.2. Respondent No.2 is said to have written another letter dated 19.8.1998 to the appellant for making necessary correction in the date of birth recorded in the matriculation certificate of respondent No.1, but without any result. On its part, the appellant is said to have sent 2-3 communications to respondent No.2 between 1988 and 1991 requiring him to furnish the admission register and copy of the cancelled transfer certificate for the purpose of verification of the date of birth of respondent No.1 but the latter did not respond. On 30.6.1992, the appellant returned original certificate of respondent No.1 without making correction and directed respondent No.2 to submit the relevant records at the certificate distribution camp for checking the date of birth of respondent No.1.
4.After 12 years of his appearing in the examination and more than 3 years of the return of original certificate to respondent No.2, respondent No.1 filed complaint under Sec.12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short, ‘the Act’) for issue of a direction to the appellant to correct his date of birth recorded in the matriculation certificate and also pay compensation for mental and physical agony and loss of his employment prospects by claiming that he was a consumer and there was deficiency of service on the appellant’s part. Respondent No.1 pleaded that he had suffered incalculable loss because his candidature was rejected by various recruiting agencies/authorities on the ground of non-production of original matriculation certificate.
5.In the counter filed on behalf of the appellant, it was averred that instructions were issued to respondent No.2 vide letter No.7279 dated 27.11.1988 to attend document distribution centre at Phulbani but he did not comply with the same. It was further averred that vide letter dated 27.07.1989 respondent No.2 was asked to submit the admission register for the purpose of verification of the exact date of birth of respondent No.1 but he did not do the needful and did not attend the camp organized for the purpose of checking the original documents. According to the appellant, the same story was repeated when the camp was held in July 1992 in the premises of Balliguda High School and AJO High School, Phulbani.
6.In his counter, respondent No.2 shifted the entire blame on the appellant by stating that he had forwarded the original certificate for correction of the date of birth along with the relevant papers but necessary action was not taken by the appellant. Respondent No.2 also denied the receipt of the communications sen
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