IMPORTANT POINT
Private Limited Company cannot file consumer complaint seeking loss of profits.

D. Appa Rao, President—Having heard the learned Counsel for the complainant, and having perused the record, we are of the opinion that this Commission cannot take cognizance of the complaint, in view of the fact that the complainant is a private limited company seeking loss of profits, loss of reputation, loss of interest on the amount held as security, loss of interest on held up capital of Rs. 6,90,92,000, and Rs.5,00,000 towards mental agony and sufferance in all Rs.60,00,000 against the opposite party bank on the ground that the services it had agreed to provide were not provided

2. When a query was raised as to how the complaint is maintainable in view of the fact that the services availed are for commercial purpose and the exclusion clause does not in any way comes to the rescue of the complainant, in the sense that the complainant a private limited company could not have availed the services exclusively for the purpose of earning livelihood by means of self-employment.

3. Recently the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Birla Technologies Ltd. v. Neutral Glass and Allied Industries Ltd.1, observed that purchasing of goods or availing services for commercial purpose would not attract the definition of ‘consumer’ in the light of Section 2(1)(d)(i) or 2(1)(d)(ii). For benefit we excerpt the passage from the said decision in order to impress that Section 2(1)(d) attracts both purchasing of goods as well as availing of services. Their Lordships opined:

“that the goods sold by the appellant to the respondent/complainant amounted to ‘goods’ and that such goods were purchased for commercial purpose of earning more profits, there could be no dispute that even the services which were offered had to be for the commercial purpose. Nothing was argued to the contrary. On the one count that under Section 2(1)(d)(i), the goods have been purchased for commercial purposes and on the second count that the services were hired or availed of for commercial purposes. The matter does not come even under the Explanation which was introduced on the same day i.e. on 15.3.2003 by way of the amendment by the same Amendment Act, as it is nobody’s case that the goods bought and used by the respondent herein and the services availed by the respondent were exclusively for the purpose of earning the respondent’s livelihood by means of self- employment. In that view, it will have to be held that the complaint itself was not maintainable in toto”

4. The learned Counsel for the complainant contended that Their Lordships did not consider the definition of ‘service’ as defined under Section 2(1) (o) of the Consumer Protection Act vis-a-vis ‘goods and services’. In fact in view of definition under Section 2(1)(d)(ii) there is no need to consider the definition of ‘service’, in view of the fact that said definition expatiates as to the services that are amenable in order to resolve the dispute.

5. At the cost of repetition, we may state that in order to attract a case to be filed before the Consumer Fora the important ingredient could be that either availing of services or goods purchased it should be exclusively for the purposes of earning his livelihood by means of self-employment. By no stretch of imagination a Private Limited Company could be treated as a person of goods bought and used by him/it and services availed by him/it exclusively for the purposes of earning his/its livelihood by means of self-employment.

6. In the circumstances, the complaint is returned with an observation that same could be filed at an appropriate forum having jurisdiction in the matter.

Complaint returned.

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