The central legal point established in the judgment is that the Consumer Protection Act forum cannot intervene in matters already addressed by the civil Court, and grievances against a witness summoned by the civil Court should be redressed by the civil judge of that Court.

ORDER

Pritam Pal, President - This revision by complainant Rashpal Singh is directed against the order dated 8.10.2009 passed by District Consumer Forum-I, U.T. Chandigarh whereby his complaint bearing No. 925 of 2009 for refund of Rs. 5,500 paid to Sh. Devendra Prasad as expenses of his being expert witness was dismissed in limine with a penalty of Rs. 10,000 under Section 26 of the Consumer Protection Act.

The parties in this judgment hereinafter shall be referred to as per their ranking before the District Forum.

2. In nutshell the facts culminated to the commencement of this appeal may be recapitulated thus:

The complainant was a tenant in certain premises and his landlord in 1999 filed an ejectment application under the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act in which the complainant was alleged to have been served and on account of his non-appearance he was proceeded against ex parte. The ejectment order was passed against him on 8.6.2001. The complainant then filed a civil suit for declaration in the year 2002 to the effect that he was never served in the ejectment application and the report about service of summons did not bear his signatures which was forgery and fabrication. In order to get his signatures on the summons compared with his specimen signatures, the complainant engaged the OP who submitted his report to the Civil Court where he was examined on 25.9.2008. His cross-examination was deferred. According to the complainant the Court record showing the cross-examination as deferred was wrong and the cross examination of the OP was recorded by the Civil Judge on 25.9.2008 itself and when he asked the OP to file an affidavit to the effect that he had already been cross-examined, the OP refused to file an affidavit and he appeared to have been won over by the landlord. Alleging deficiency in service, complainant filed complaint before the District Forum seeking refund of the entire fee of Rs. 5,500 charged by OP for giving the report and Rs. four lacs as compensation for mental agony and harassment besides Rs. 10,000 as costs of litigation.

3. The District Consumer Forum after hearing the Counsel for complainant and perusing the record came to the conclusion that the complaint was not a fit case for regular hearing and dismissed the same vide order dated 9.7.2009 with costs of Rs. 10,000. The complainant then filed a revision petition before this Commission wherein vide order dated 8.9.2009 the impugned order dated 9.7.2009 was set aside and the case was remanded back to the District Forum to give the complainant an opportunity of being heard. However, after hearing the representative of complainant, the District Forum vide order dated 8.10.2009 again dismissed the complaint and directed the complainant to pay to OP Rs. 10,000 as compensation under Section 26 of the Consumer Protection Act.

4. We have heard Counsel for appellant/complainant and also examined the material placed on the file. The sole point of arguments raised before us by the learned Counsel for complainant is that OP was a witness of the complainant in a civil matter pending before the civil Court where his examination-in-chief as well as cross-examination was recorded. However, he further submitted that the factum of recording his cross-examination was not mentioned in the interim order recorded by the civil judge. It is on that count that the complainant had asked the OP to furnish his affidavit to the effect that he was cross-examined before the civil Court. Learned District Forum after going through the material placed before it came to the conclusion that in fact cross-examination of OP was never recorded by the civil judge so, it was then held that complainant has failed to show that OP had failed to render the required service as mentioned under Section-2 (o) of the Consumer Protection Act.

5. Apart from this aforesaid observation of the learned District Forum, we after hearing learned Counsel for the complainant find that infact the complaint filed bef