IMPORTANT POINT
Territorial jurisdiction - Territorial jurisdiction is clearly ordained by the legislature that cannot be stretched beyond territorial limits through legal gymnastics.

ORDER

A.P. Sahi, President—The present dispute involves an interesting question regarding the territorial jurisdiction of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Chandigarh (hereinafter referred to as, ‘State Commission’) to entertain the claim regarding an incident that took place at Panipat which is in the State of Haryana. The contention on behalf of the Insurance company is that no part of the cause of action arose in Punjab or even in the Union Territory at Chandigarh so as to attract the jurisdiction of the State Commission at Chandigarh. First Appeal No. 23 of 2010 filed by the Insurance Company raises this contention urging that the State Commission, Chandigarh lacked patent jurisdiction.

2. The dispute was noticed earlier in the Order recorded on 28.08.2023 and then subsequently in the Order dated 22.09.2023. The Order dated 22.09.2023 is extracted here as under:—

“In these two appeals which are cross appeals one by the complainant and the other by the Insurance Company. A common dispute which needs to be addressed at the outset is of the territorial jurisdiction of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, UT Chandigarh which according to the learned counsel for the Insurance Company did not have any cause before it to try the said complaint. It is submitted that the complainant was well aware of this territorial jurisdictional issue in as much as, even earlier when he had instituted claim petitions arising out of the insurance claims they were done either in the District Forums or the State Commission of the State of Haryana. Thus, this complaint was filed in Chandigarh with no cause of action having arisen so as to attract the jurisdiction of the Chandigarh State Commission.

This ground was raised by the Insurance Company as is evident from a perusal of the impugned order where in paragraph 14, the State Commission rebutted this argument of the Insurance Company on the ground that the surveyor had received telephonic instructions from the regional office on 28.11.2007 to assess the damage and loss suffered by the complainant and therefore it was apparent that the regional office of the Insurance Company at Chandigarh was directly concerned and linked with the settlement of the claim that was administered by the complainant.

Mr. Ravi Bakshi, learned counsel for the Insurance Company invited the attention of the bench to paragraph 7 and 10 of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of “Sonic Surgical Vs. National Insurance Co. Ltd., (2010) 1 SCC 135” and submits that keeping in view the provisions of Section 17(2)(b) mere existence of a branch office of the Insurance Company at Chandigarh or even receiving the telephonic message will not constitute even a part of the cause of action so as to attract the jurisdiction of the State Commission at Chandigarh. It is therefore urged that in the absence of any such nexus between the cause of action in the present case with the regional office at Chandigarh. The jurisdiction could not have been stretched so as to allow the State Commission to proceed with the claim petition. He contends that the judgment in the case of Sonic Surgical (supra) clearly answers this issue and hence the orders of the State Commission is coram non judice and the appeal filed by the Insurance Company namely, FA/23/2010 deserves to be allowed and the claim petition in its entirety should be dismissed setting aside the order of the State Commission for want of jurisdiction.

Learned counsel submits that this is a case of patent lack of jurisdiction which has been erroneously answered by the State Commission keeping in view the law laid down by the Apex Court and the statutory provisions referred to hereinabove. Hence the order of the State Commission is unsustainable. Learned counsel for the complainant submits that the appeal is entertainable in as much as, the regional office was very much directly involved that gave rise to the part of cause of action and hence the cont