IMPORTANT POINT
Revisional jurisdiction - The present revision petition is therefore an attempt by the petitioner to urge this Commission to re-assess, re-appreciate the evidence which cannot be done in revisional jurisdiction.

ORDER

Subhash Chandra, Presiding Member—This review petition filed under section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (in short, the ‘Act’) assails the order of the State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission, West Bengal (in short, ‘State Commission’) in First Appeal No. 1195 of 2013 dated 08.10.2013 dismissing the appeal against the order of the District Forum, Barasat, North 24 Parganas (in short, ‘District Forum’) dated 08.10.2013 in Complaint No. 258 of 2013.

2. In brief, the facts of the case are that the respondent approached the petitioner who is a company under the Companies Act, 1956 engaged in the business of providing loans against the pledge of gold ornaments at its Sodepur branch office, District North 24 Parganas and obtained a loan of Rs 3,50,980/- by pledging various gold ornaments weighing 366.8 gms (gross, including stones)/net 308.31 gms on different dates between 03.07.2009 and 10.07.2009. The terms and conditions of the said loan required full repayment on or before 12 months failing which the pledged items would be sold by auction. As no repayment was done by August 2010 registered auction notices were issued on 18.02.2011 and 21.02.2011 which were returned with endorsement ‘left’. All but one ornaments pledged were auctioned on 24.05.2011 after a further period of 10 months from the date of expiry of the pledge. The surplus sum of Rs.1,04,021/- was sent to the respondent which was material undelivered. It is the petitioner’s case that they have acted as per the terms and conditions of the scheme under which the loan was provided and have therefore prayed for setting aside of the State Commission’s order in so far as it relates to directing them to hand over the pledged gold ornaments against the repayment of the loan amount.

3. The order of the District Forum dated 08.10.2013 in Complaint No. 258 of 2013 reads as below:—

“In view of our above finding, the petition of complainant under section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is liable to be allowed and is allowed accordingly, hence ordered:

That the OPs are jointly and severally directed to hand over all the pledged ornaments, given in security to the OPs as per acknowledged granted by them, to the complainant on payment of principal amount together with interest accrued thereon at the agreed rate of interest to be calculated upto the date of filing of this case from the date of taking loan in respect of the respective loan account within one month from the date of completion of the calculation of the total dues.

The calculation of the total dues has to be completed within a month from the date of this order. The compensation and the litigation cost taken together is assessed at Rs.25,000/- which will be paid by OPs to the complainant on the date of settling the account of loan account.”

4. The impugned order of the State Commission in FA 1195 of 2013 is as follows:—

“According to section 176 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 before putting pledged goods on sale, pawnee has to give a reasonable notice to debtor, before the actual action. The owner or pledge should have an opportunity to redeem the pledged goods. When the notice appears to be defective one which does not contain any signature or seal of the pawnee company and it is only in a printed form written in “Hindi” language and further no application was made to the public for such auction, it was a clear deficiency on the part of appellant company.

Therefore, on evaluation of materials on record we find both the parties were in default in complying with the agreed terms and conditions arrived at in between them at the time of giving or taking loan. Since the appellant company have failed to prove that the ornaments kept in mortgage by the respondent was sold in auction we think the learned District Forum was quite justified in allowing the consumer complaint with a direction upon the OPs to hand over all the pledged ornaments to the OPs on payment of principal amount together