The main legal point established in the judgment is that the High Court should only interfere in consumer disputes if the order of the lower consumer forums is wholly without jurisdiction, and there is an efficacious alternative remedy available under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

Deepak Gupta, J.

This writ petition is directed against the order dated 11-09-2009 passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Tripura in appeal No. F.A. 16 of 2009 whereby it allowed the appeal of the private respondents No.2 and 3 and awarded compensation of Rs.5,00,000/- (rupees five lakhs) along with costs and interest in favour of the claimants and against the present petitioner, the Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as TSECL).

2. The only issue before us is whether we have jurisdiction to decide this dispute. Therefore, we are only narrating those facts which are essential to decide this matter. The complainants before the District Consumer Redressal Forum were the parents of a young man Kajal Das. It was alleged that when Kajal was trying to drive out cattle who had entered the fields and was damaging the crops, he was electrocuted when he touched a wire which had been connected from the top of the electric pole to fix the post to the ground.

3. The claimants filed the claim petition claiming compensation for the death of their son. The District Forum held that the claimants were not the consumers and this was not a consumer dispute falling within the meaning of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and hence, dismissed the claim petition. At this stage, it would be pertinent to mention that the District Forum had only partly recorded the evidence of the parties and while the case was still at the stage of recording of evidence, the District Forum decided to treat the issue of jurisdiction as a preliminary issue.

4. Aggrieved by the order of the District Forum, the claimants filed an appeal to the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. The Commission held that the claimants were consumers since they had an electricity connection and that there was negligence on the part of the present petitioner and, therefore, directed compensation.

5. It is urged by Mr. Abhijit Sengupta, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the TSECL, that the order of the State Commission is wholly without jurisdiction because there is no consumer dispute involved. His second submission is that since the District Forum had not even completed recording evidence, even if the issue of jurisdiction was to be decided in favour of the complainant, the matter should have been remitted back to the District Forum to enable the petitioner-Corporation to lead evidence to prove that it is not at fault. On these grounds, it is submitted that since the order is without jurisdiction and the principles of natural justice have not been followed, this Court should interfere in the matter.

6. We may make it clear that we are not commenting on the merits of the case. When a party invokes the jurisdiction of any Court or Tribunal and the jurisdiction of that Court or Tribunal is denied by the opposite party, that Court or Tribunal has the right to decide the issue whether it has jurisdiction or not. The matter was decided in favour of the petitioner by the Tribunal. The State Commission has decided the issue against the petitioner. We are of the view that this is not a case of total lack of jurisdiction but this is a case where on the evidence of the parties it will have to be decided whether there is any deficiency of service and whether there is a consumer dispute or not.

7. As far as the second issue raised by learned counsel is concerned, that to our mind is an important issue because no party should be condemned unheard. However, at the same time we have to keep in mind the restrictions imposed by the Apex Court on the various High Courts in exercise of the extraordinary writ jurisdiction in cases relating to the Consumer Protection Act.

8. In this behalf, we may make reference to the judgment of the Apex Court in State of Karnataka vrs. Vishwabarathi House Building Co-op. Society and others [2003 AIR SCW 558] wherein the Apex Court dealing with the provisions of the Consu