IMPORTANT POINT
Having promised to bore the well upto depth of 100 metres by using pipes of 10" diameters if infact well was bored upto 80 metres depth & pipes of 8.3/8" diameters were used, it constituted deficiency in service on part of bore well services provider entitling complainant to compensation for loss of crop & for refund of amount paid towards services etc.

M.A.A. Khan, President— The appellants are agriculturist by profession. They own sufficient ‘Barani’ land at village Manafarsar in District Bikaner. With a view to provide irrigation facilities to their said agricultural land they got it surveyed by Survey and Research Ground Water Department of the State Govt. and on their reporting of the availability of water at depth of 75 metres hired the services of the respondent for a conside-ration of Rs. 1,20,000/- for boring a well at their field, Khasra No. 129, up to the depth of 100 metres. The respondent assured them that the bore-well, bored by him, would give an outflow of 10,000 gallons water per hour. The appellants obtained a Bank Loan of Rs. 2,71,000/- for construction of the well. Boring of the well was completed on 5.7.1994 but the outflow of water was far below 10,000 gallons and lot of clay was coming out with the meagre stream of water. The respondent assured them of the increased supply of water after some time. He had already received the entire consideration through the Bank in three instalments. Since supply of water did not improve and the appellants constantly poured their complaints to him, the respondent advised them to get the boring checked by other experts in the business. By spending a huge sum of Rs. 25,000/- for obtaining opinions of two different experts successively, as per advice of the respondent, appellants came to know that the respondent had bored the well upto the depth of 80 metres only instead of 100 metres as promised and assured by him and since he had used pipes of 8"diameters instead of the promised 10" diameters, and greavel packing at the bottom had also been done, no further boring of the well was practicable. The appellants, alleging that the respondent had rendered deficient services to them and caused to them great mental agony, a physical discom-fort, loss of “Kharif” Crop in 37-1/2 Bighas of land as also of huge expenditure in providing material and labour for construction of the well, claimed Rs. 4,46,590.19 from the respondent through the complaint filed by them against him before the Distt. Form, Bikaner.

2. The respondent did not dispute that he had entered into a contact with the appellants for boring a well at their field up to the depth of 100 metres and laying pipes of 10" diameters against a consideration of Rs. 1,200/- per metre and did received Rs. 1,20,000/- from them, and that after completion of the work, the appellants had complained to him of insufficient discharge of water from the bored-well and had also produced before him the reports of two experts in the business in support of their complaint. But his version was that he had bored the well upto the depth of 100 metres, that he had used pipes of 10" diameters, that the well had given an outflow of 10,000 gallons of water per hour in a running of 16 hours and that he had not promised to the appellants that the above quantity of supply of water would be maintained by the well indefinitely.

3. During the pendency of the complaint before the District Forum, the respondent in his obvious effort to rebut the evidence in the reports of M/s. URMUL (Rural Health Research and Development Trust), Lunkaransar and M/s. Shiv Ganga Tube Well, which reports mentioned that the well in question had been bored upto a depth of 80 metres only and pipes of 8" diameters were used in the boring, requested the Forum to call for the expert opinion, on the points in controversy, of the qualified Engineer of the Underground Water Deptt. of the State Govt. at Bikaner. Such a report was called for by the Forum and the Executive Engineer, Underground Water Deptt at Bikaner, confirmed that the well was bored upto a depth of 77.70 metres only and that the diameter of the pipes used therein measured 8-3/8" in the inner side and 8-5/8" at the outer. The District Forum did not accept the abovementioned report, called by it from the Executive Engineer, on the suppo-sition that he might have commi