The court established that failure to adhere to contract provisions regarding service and charges constitutes deficiency in service, holding both contractors and Railway Authorities liable.

Mrs. D.K. Bhamrah, Member—Sh. R.L. Aggarwal has filed this appeal against the order dated 8.10.1998 of District Forum, Ludhiana whereby his complaint was dismissed. The relevant portion of the judgment is being reproduced as under :

“No relief can be granted to the complainant in this complaint. Moreover charging of Rs. 2.50 extra than the prescribed rate is too trivial a matter to be taken note of. As such, no relief can be granted to the complainant in this complaint which is accordingly dismissed, leaving the parties to bear their own costs.”

2. Aggrieved by the above mentioned order, the complainant has filed this appeal, with a prayer to accept his appeal and to set aside the order of the District Forum, Ludhiana.

3. The case of the complainant in short is that he had parked his scooter on ‘cycle stand’ of the Railway Station Ludhiana on 26.8.1997. The parking fee was 0.50 paise but he was charged Rs. 3/-. He protested against such mal-practice but was in turn insulted. He went to complain to the Station Master, Ludhiana but the Station Master showed his helplessness in this matter, rather presented complaint book in which the complainant lodged complaint against the contractor of the “parking place”. Thereafter the complainant had been writing to the Railway Authorities time and again but no action was taken by the Railway Authorities. He, therefore, filed the complaint before the District Forum for refund of Rs. 12/- (Rs. 9.50 plus Rs. 2.50) with a prayer that the Railway Authorities and the contractor should be made directly responsible for the mal-practice, who fleece the public in this manner. He had filed complaint against the present and the previous contractors, Station Master, Railway Station Ludhiana and Additional Division’, Railway Manager, Ferozepur. Since names and addresses of the contractors were not given, the notices could not be issued to them. However,. the notice was issued to the Railway Authorities who filed their counter admitting that the complainant had lodged a complaint regarding excess charges on which due action was taken and the previous contractor had been fined with Rs. 500/-, who deposited the same with the Railway Authorities. According to them, there was no deficiency on their part. Therefore, the District Forum dismissed the complaint as aforementioned.

4. In the appeal before us, the appellant Sh. R.L. Aggarwal argued his case himself, for respondent No. 1, Mr. N.S. Virk appeared and Ms. Nandini Marwaha represented respondent No. 2, Railway Authorities.

5. The main grouse of the appellant is that contractors of the “parking place” charge more money than the printed on the receipts, from him, the appellant has vehemently reiterated the submissions made before the District Forum to contend that the contractor was dealing in “unfair trade practice’. His stand gets strengthened and proved as during the pendency of appeal, the appellant received a draft of Rs. 9.05 P. from the contractor of the “parking place”, the photocopy of which has been submitted and which was ordered to be taken on record. The appellant had refused to accept the same and wanted to pursue his appeal. In the words of the appellant, “It was not merely to get the trivial sum of Rs. 9.50 P. that I had undertaken all this tremendous effort and borne this huge expenditure. It was to see that the law of the land should prevail in free India and also to put a stop to the blatant exploitation of the common people, going on under the very nose of the Railway Authorities. What was ever more shocking and what added further impetus to my effort was the fact that anyone who objected to the nefarious activities of the contractor was insulted, humiliated and sometimes even manhandled”. There is force in his contention and his courage and endurance needs to be appreciated.

6. It is a matter of record that he had to spend lot of money in pursuing his case. He had been fighting to get justice since 25.3.1998 when he lodged complaint bef