IMPORTANT POINT
Even if goods were purchased for commercial purpose, if there is a warranty for its maintenance, purchaser would be a consumer in respect of service rendered or to be rendered by manufacturer or supplier during warranty period.

M.K. Basu, President— This is a complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act 1986 filed by M.D. Technomeck Pvt. Ltd. and others against M/s. Tirupati Engineers and others claiming various reliefs on the following grounds. The Complainants who are reputed engineering firms placed orders for purchase of Milling machine etc. with the opposite party on 25-3-1997. The price of such machines was fixed at Rs. 6,18,268/-. The O.P. duly confirmed and accepted that order by their letter dt. 28-3-1997, proforma invoice being No. 876 dt. 28-3-1997. The said machines were delivered by the O.P. on 26-6-1997, 11-7-1997 and 3-9-1997 respectively and on giving trial run the complainants found a number of faults and manu-facturing defects in each of these machines. Thereafter the Complainants requested the O.P. to set the defects right but all fell on deaf ears. The O.P. did not care to pay any heed to such requests. The petitioner’s repeated reminders and representations to the O.P. for rectifying the defects of the machines were greeted with no response and the O.Ps did not even came to inspect the machine, for a single time and as a result the peti-tioners have suffered a substantial loss amounting to Rs. 14,02,200/- due to their failure to comply with the orders placed by the Ichhapur Rifle Factory. Under such compelling circumstances the complai-nants have been constrained to file this complaint within a year from the date of receipt of invoice. They have also taken an expert opinion relating to the said manufacturing defects of the machines concerned and according to such opinion all those machines are sub-standard, defective and liable to be abandoned. They have suffered huge loss and accordingly they claim compensation and damages to the extent of Rs. 6,80,000/- for the reason that due to the O.Ps failure to set the defective machines right the complainants could not execute the order placed to them by the Ichhapur Rifle Factory. They have also claimed a further sum of Rs. 20,000/- as compensation for the mental agony and physical harass-ment suffered by them. This is in addition to their main prayer for refund of a sum of Rs. 5,65,000/- with they paid to the O.Ps as the price of the machines. Moreover the complainant has also claimed a sum of Rs. 1,37,200/- by way of interest on the loan amount taken by them from the bank @ 16% p.a. They also claimed costs of this litigation.

2. The O.Ps have contested the petition by filing written objection admitting that an order for purchase of the said machines was placed by the complainants to them and the O.Ps confirmed that order and also gave deli-very of such machines to the complai-nants. The case of the O.Ps is that before such delivery of the machines the same were inspected by one of the Directors of the complainants Mr. A. Dasgupta at the factory at Ludhiana and Amritsar respec-tively where the said machines were manufactured and after such inspection a certificate was also issued by the said Mr. A. Dasgupta, a Director of the comp-lainant firm approving of the said machines in accordance with the speci-fications given by the complainant as would appear from the certificate dt.

11-6-1997. According to the O.Ps. from the scrutiny of the said certificates it is apparent that the said machines been manufactured according to the specifica-tions mentioned in the purchase order dt. 25-3-1997 placed by the complainant. Further, the said certificate was jointly signed by Mr. A Dasgupta for the complainant and one Sri D.K. Chowdhury, representing the O.P.I. to the effect that the machines were all right. It is further contended by the O.Ps. that the said machines were commissioned and trial run was initiated when some alleged faults and defects were noticed, but although in the complaint it has been stated that several written representa-tions were made to the O.P. complaining about such defects of the machines, no letter of complaint had been annexed to the complaint at all. It