IMPORTANT POINT
When a person avails a service for a commercial purpose, to come within meaning of ‘consumer’ as defined in C.P. Act, he will have to establish that services were availed exclusively for the purposes of earning his livelihood by means of self-employment. There cannot be any strait-jacket formula and such a question will have to be decided in facts of each case, depending upon evidence placed on record.

JUDGMENT :

B.R. GAVAI, J.

1. The present appeal filed by the appellant-complainant challenges the judgment and order dated 1st June, 2016, passed by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as “the Commission”) in Consumer Complaint No.55 of 2006, thereby holding that the appellant-complainant was not a consumer as envisaged under Section 2(1)(d) of The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as “the said Act”). As such, by the impugned judgment and order, the complaint of the appellant has been dismissed being not maintainable.

2. The facts in the present case are not in dispute. The bare necessary facts for adjudication of the present appeal are as under:

3. The appellant-complainant had opened an account with erstwhile Nedungadi Bank Limited (hereinafter referred to as “the erstwhile Bank”) in the year 1998. The appellant is a stockbroker by profession. The appellant had applied for an overdraft facility on 25th April, 1998, in connection with his day-to-day share and stock transactions. It is not in dispute that the said overdraft facility was sanctioned by the erstwhile Bank to the appellant-complainant initially for an amount of Rs.1 crore, for which the appellant-complainant had pledged certain shares worth more than Rs.1 crore, as security as per the margin requirements specified by the erstwhile Bank. Subsequently, in the year 1999, the appellant-complainant applied for enhancement of the said overdraft facility. The said overdraft facility was enhanced by the erstwhile Bank from Rs.1 crore to Rs. 5 crore, vide its letter dated 13th December, 1999.

4. Again, in March 2001, the appellant-complainant approached the erstwhile Bank for temporary increase in the overdraft limit. The erstwhile Bank, vide its letter dated 17th March, 2001, granted the request of the appellant and temporarily enhanced the overdraft facility from Rs.5 crore to Rs.6 crore, for a period of one week.

5. It appears that due to steep fall in the share market, the erstwhile Bank, vide its letters dated 16th and 17th March, 2001, called upon the appellant-complainant to pledge additional shares to regularize the overdraft account. As an additional security, the appellant-complainant pledged 37,50,000 equity shares of face value of Rs.10/of unlisted company Ansal Hotels Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “the said shares”) towards the dues of the Bank, vide his letter dated 30th March, 2001. It is not in dispute that subsequently, consequent to the merger of Ansal Hotels Ltd. with ITC Ltd., and the bonus and splitting of ITC shares, the aforesaid 37,50,000 equity shares of Ansal Hotels Ltd. became equivalent to 3,75,000 shares of ITC Ltd.

6. It appears that during 2001, the overdraft account of the appellant-complainant became irregular and as such, the erstwhile Bank called upon the appellant-complainant to regularise the overdraft account. As the appellant-complainant was unable to regularise the overdraft account, the erstwhile Bank, vide letter dated 14th September, 2001, called upon the appellant-complainant to pay a sum of Rs.600.61 lakhs along with interest thereon.

7. It is the case of the appellant-complainant that though he had advised the erstwhile Bank to sell the pledged shares in December, 2001, so as to close overdraft account, the erstwhile Bank chose not to sell the said shares at that point of time. It is the case of the appellant-complainant that the said shares were sold by the erstwhile Bank in November 2002, when the market value of the said pledged shares was at the lowest, which resulted in huge loss to the appellant-complainant.

8. After selling a part of the pledged shares for a sum of Rs.2,69,66,215.79, the respondent Bank, the successor-in-interest of the erstwhile Bank, filed a Recovery Petition before the Debts Recovery Tribunal, Mumbai against the appellant-complainant for recovery of the balance amount due as on 26th December, 2002. The said petition was decreed by the