ORDER

This appeal under section 51(1) of the Act 2019 is in challenge to the Order dated 30.11.2021 of the State Commission in complaint no. 07 of 2021.

2. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellants and for the respondents and have perused the record including inter alia the impugned Order dated 30.11.2021 of the State Commission and the memorandum of appeal.

3. The State Commission, vide its impugned Order of 30.11.2021, has decided the preliminary issue re pecuniary jurisdiction. The gist of its examination, as contained in paras 05 to 11 of its Order, is being reproduced below for reference:—

05. The suit has been instituted in the year 2021. Therefore, the provisions of the new Act, Consumer Protection Act, 2019, after the date commencement of the new Act i.c. 20.7.2020, shall apply to this matter as per the judgement passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Neena Aneja vs. Jai Prakash Associates reported in III(2021) CPJ Page 1 (SC). As per Section 47(iii) of the new Act Consumer Protection Act, 2019—

Subject to the other provisions of this Act, the State Commission shall have Jurisdiction-

(a) To entertain—

(i) Complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration, exceeds rupees one crore, but does not exceed rupees ten crore.

06. As per the Section 47 of the Act, mentioned above, the power of the State Commission is to accept the complaints in which the value of goods or services paid as consideration is between Rs. 1,00,00,000/- and Rs. 10,000,000/-

07. In this complaint, the complainant has prayed for the cancellation of a letter drawn by the Opposite party in respect of flats worth more than Rs. 1,00,00,000/- and also has prayed for allotment of the flat in his favour. For which as per the complaint, the complainant has so far paid Rs. 14,58,567/- as consideration. According to the complainant the value of the subject-matter in question i.e. the flat costs more than Rs. 1,00,00,000/- therefore, on the words of Section 47 C.P. Act, the State Commission has the jurisdiction to hear and dispose off the suit. On the other hand, the Opposite party has contended that Rs. 14,58,567/- has been paid as consideration in respect of the said price of the flat and for this reason, in view of this payment of consideration money, the pecuniary jurisdiction for hearing and disposal of the complaint as prescribed in the Act is less than 1,00,00,000/- and hence the State Commission does not have the jurisdiction to listen and discharge the complaint.

08. In light of the conflicting claims of both the parties, section 47 Act needs to be looked into carefully, which, in our view, can be interpreted in two ways. The perusal of Section 47(1) shows that it can be stated in 2 ways, it can be read in the first way as follows:

The Value of goods or Services Paid as consideration,

09. The same provision also can be read in alternatively in the following way—

The value of goods or Services paid as consideration,

10. Thus the question before the bench is as to whether the phrases ‘The Value of goods’ and ‘Services’ are joined with the word ‘or’ and the phrase ‘paid as consideration’ qualifies both these phrase or else the word ‘or’ has been put as a conjunction between the phrase ‘the value of goods’ and ‘service paid as consideration’.

11. In considered view of this bench on the above point is such that the grammatical interpretation of the sentence and phrases used in the relevant Section is important in the question involved and place of conjunction ‘or” is necessary to be considered to interpret the Section. In our view, it is more appropriate to read the provision in the second way because in this section the word “or” has been inserted between the phrases “value of ‘goods’ and ‘Services paid as consideration”, hence the comma has been put after the term “Services paid as consideration”, which makes it obvious that the word and “value of goods” and “Services paid as consideration” are linked