Endorsers cannot be held liable for unfair trade practices without direct involvement in the service transaction, as established under the Consumer Protection Act.

JUDGMENT

The petitioner is the 2nd opposite party in C.C. No. 196 of 2022 of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Thiruvananthapuram. This writ petition is submitted by the petitioner, challenging Exts.P6 and P8 orders, passed by the District Commission as well as the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, respectively, where the challenge raised by the petitioner, against the maintainability of the complaint as against the petitioner, was rejected.

2. The facts that led to the filing of this writ petition are as follows:

The petitioner is a film actor and he happened to be the brand ambassador of M/s Manapuram Finance, to which 1st opposite party in the complaint, who is the 4^th respondent herein, is the Manager. The said establishment is rendering various financial services including gold loan to its customers. The 2^nd and 3^rd respondents herein, are the complainants in the aforesaid complaint. According to the said complainants, they initially pledged their gold ornaments at Catholic Syrian Bank for an interest at the rate of 15% per annum. Later the said loan was taken over by the 4th respondent/ 1st opposite party, by promising lower interest rate on 31.03.2018 and 13.04.2018 respectively.

It is averred that the complainants were attracted by the offer made by the opposite parties and decided to accept the same. It is also averred that at the time of pledging the gold ornaments, the 1st opposite party assured that the interest rate will be 12% per annum as assured by the 2nd opposite party through his advertisement in various media. According to the petitioner, when the 2nd and 3rd respondents approached the 4th respondent, to close the loan account and release the gold, a higher interest rate than what was claimed in the advertisement, was demanded. It was in these circumstances the complaint was submitted, seeking the refund of the excess interest collected from the petitioner and also seeking a compensation of Rs. 25 Lakhs for the loss suffered by the complainant, including compensation for the mental agony, injury and valuable time lost.

3. The petitioner filed a written version, in response to the averments contained in the complaint, wherein, a specific contention was raised, stating that the petitioner never had any direct relation to the transactions referred to in the complaint and merely because of the reason that he happened to be the brand ambassador of services offered by the 4th respondent, he cannot be held responsible to any deficiency of service or unfair trade practice allegedly committed by the 4th respondent. The petitioner also filed an application raising the question of maintainability of the complaint and to consider the same as a preliminary issue. The District Commission considered the said question and Ext.P6 order was passed, wherein, after relying on the definition of ‘endorsement’ as contemplated under Section 2 (18), of the Consumer Protection Act , 2019, rejected the contentions of the petitioner holding that, the complaint is maintainable against the petitioner. A revision petition was submitted before the Kerala State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission as evidenced by Ext.P7, which resulted in Ext.P8 order, wherein, the State Commission refused to enter into any specific finding as to the maintainability on the ground that the said question cannot be considered at this stage. This writ petition is submitted in such circumstances challenging Exts.P6 and P8.

4. I have heard Sri. George Sebastian, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri. K.S. Arundas, learned counsel appea