Mr. Justice M.S. Rane, President—This appeal which is filed in the year 1998 in a consumer dispute filed before the District Forum in the year 1992 is being taken up for final hearing today. It will thus be noticed that for nearly 11 years this dispute is pending initially till 1998 before the District Forum, Solapur and, thereafter before us.

2. At the outset, we wish to state with a bit of anguish that after having such a lengthy inning, we have been immensely handicaped in ensuring its meaningful and effective adjudication, reason being that the District Forum, who has passed the impugned order of this appeal has virtually abdicated its duty of adjudication of the dispute herein by itself in the light of grievance of the complainant and material that was referred to in support of the rival contentions by the parties before it. The District Forum has simply shirked its duty and relegated the complainant to other Forum.

3. Matter as we perceive from the material made available revolves over the narrow compass of the facts. That is to say complainant who is the appellant herein was required to arrange for the blood for transfusion to his ailing mother under the medical advice and he being a son, came forward for giving the same to his mother. In the process, the complainant approached the O.Ps. who are running a Blood Bank and complainant has alleged deficiency in that process.

4. Complainant asserts that when he approached for the said purpose, his blood samples were taken. Nephew of the complainant also came forth to give the blood and his blood sample was also taken

As the blood transfusion of his mother was urgently required, this was done.

5. Complainant paid for the said purpose to the O.Ps. as service charges for extracting blood.

6. It is grievance of the complainant that thereafter, O.Ps. who made a show of conducting test, declared blood being not suitable as it contained Hepatitis B, which fact was not found acceptable to the complainant, which he got confirmed from other competent Expert. Hence the complaint.

7. O.Ps. appeared and they denied various allegations made against them by the complainant and pleaded that there was no deficiency in rendering services, etc.

8. With these facts, we would have expected that District Forum to examine the rival contentions of the parties and thrash out the matter on merits. Instead it had relegated the complainant to the Civil Court or Criminal Court of which even the District Forum is not sure, with a view that the matter would require great deal of evidence and as such involved complicated and instricate questions of law and facts.

9. It needs to be stated that as recently held by the Supreme Court in the case of Dr. J.J. Merchant & Ors. v. Shrinath Chaturvedi delivered on 12th August, 2002 and reported in III (2002) CPJ 8 (SC)=2002 CTJ 757, it becomes obligatory upon the District Forum to probe the consumer dispute itself, it is squarely amenable to its jurisdiction. The Apex Court in the said judgment also says that if it is found necessary to adduce evidence then that will not be a ground for the District Forum to relegate the party to the Civil Court as done herein. Therefore, we are of the view that this matter although belatedly should be probed by the District Forum, Solapur in accordance with the provisions of the Law and the Rules and with that view, we are remitting this matter to the District Forum, Solapur for consideration afresh on merits. Hence the following order :

ORDER

1. Appeal is allowed and its impugned order dated 13.10.1997 is set aside.

2. Matter is remitted to the District Forum, Solapur for consideration afresh on merits in accordance with the provisions of the Law and the Rules and on giving proper opportunities to the parties thereunder.

3. Appellant’s Advocate shall furnish copy of the order herein to the District Forum, Solapur immediately.

4. By consent the date for appearance before the District Forum, Solapur by the parties is fixed on 27.10.2003, on