K.C. Gupta, President — This appeal has been directed by complainant against order dated 10-8-2005 passed by Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-II, U.T. Chandigarh (hereinafter to be referred as District Consumer Forum), whereby his complaint was dismissed being devoid of any merit. However, parties were left to bear their own costs.

2. Briefly stated the facts are that the appellant is an advocate by profession. He has been practising at different Courts at Chandigarh including High Court. Respondents have been dealing in the business of electronic publishing, storing and selling electronic law library since 1993. They had upgraded their product/services under the brand name of “GRAND JURIX” since the year 2000. The said product was being marketed in almost all parts of India. According to them, their product had acquired a substantial goodwill and reputation on the basis of quality of product. The appellant was attracted to the scheme of respondents known as Grand Jurix-2001. According to the scheme, they supplied 16 CDs to him i.e. 4 CDs after every three months for one whole year till December, 2001. According to respondents, CDs were containing full judgments up to Hon’ble Supreme Court in Civil Case Law, Criminal Law, Direct Taxes law, Excise and Services law, Consumer Protection Law, Environment protection law and Arbitration and Conciliation Law etc. from 1950 onwards till December, 2001.

3. It was next averred that assurance given by the respondents was not found to be correct because a number of judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court were missing and as such he was put to loss of Rs. One lac. Respondents had given an assurance in their pamphlets that the said CDs would save Rs. 5 lacs which was required for having a rich library containing entire journals mentioned above. The said CDs would serve his purpose.

4. It was further averred that the appellant had brought major faults in

CDs to the notice of respondents and

one of their Executives visited him and promised to remove the entire fault in the CD software package to his satisfaction but nothing was done and instead CDs became blank in the month of December, 2002 and thereafter respondents had advised him to deposit Rs. 6,000/- as renewal charges to continue the service.

5. It was next averred that he was kept in dark by the respondents and it was not explained to him that if he did not pay renewal charges. CDs would stop functioning and on the other hand, he was given an impression that in case of non-payment of renewal charges, the above CDs would remain intact with the data right from the year 1950 up to December, 2001 but would not be updated.

6. Alleging gross willful negligence, concealment of facts and deficiency in service, the appellant claimed Rs. One lac on account of professional loss, Rs. 50,000/- on account of harassment, Rs. 25,000/- on account of mental agony besides refund of Rs. 12,480/- with interest @ 18% p.a. from the date of deposit.

7. Respondents contested the complaint and filed written reply. They stated that the appellant had not filed the complaint with clean hands and had suppressed material facts and had further tried to mislead for the reasons best known to him. They also took the plea, that the complaint was time barred and further the Forum had no territorial jurisdiction to try and entertain the claim as the complaint involved complicated and complex questions of both facts and law relating to evolving new age technology in the field of computer database and intellectual property rights etc. and as such the complaint could not be tried under the summary jurisdiction of the Forum. They further stated that the complaint has signed the Customer Details Card Grand Jurix-2000 (Sr. No. 20954) on 6-4-2001 after installation of the product successfully done by their executive and further received training and he had also agreed to Grand Jurix 2000 License Agreement. They next stated that the appellant was an advocate, so, he must have caref