Procedural irregularities in the State Commission's handling of the case necessitate a remand for fresh adjudication, emphasizing the need for fair hearing.

JUDGMENT

AVM JONNALAGADDA RAJENDRA, AVSM, VSM (Retd)

1. This First Appeal has been filed by Opposite Party (OP)-1 under Section 19 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (“the Act”) against the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Orissa (the State Commission) Order dated 31.05.2017 in C.C. No.50 of 2012, wherein the Complaint was partly allowed.

2. As per report of the Registry, there is 56 days delay in filing this Appeal. For reasons stated in IA No. 6780/2019 the delay is condoned.

3. For convenience, the parties in the present case are being referred to as per the complaint before State Commission. Sri. Harandra Narayan Mahapatra is identified as the Complainant and M/s SBI Cards & Payments Services Pvt Ltd is referred to as the Opposite Party (OP).

4. Brief facts of the case, as per the Complainant, are that he was holding credit card No. 4006676014823481 (Card No. xxxx3481) issued by OP-1 and cleared all outstanding dues against the said card, which was acknowledged by OP-1 vide letter dated 11.01.2011 confirming full and final settlement. The account was closed on 27.10.2010. He was never issued any other credit card by OPs. It is the case of the Complainant that CIBIL records were not accessible to public until 2011 and that he came to know of the adverse reporting against him for the first time only after CIBIL list publication on 18.08.2011. On obtaining Credit Information Report (CIR) of CIBIL, he found Rs.75,747 was wrongly shown outstanding against the card in A/c No. xxxx1063, which he was never issued to him, and that due to such incorrect reporting, he was continuously shown as defaulter since 2005. He addressed a letter to OP-1 on 16.12.2011 and sent an e-mail on 04.01.2012 seeking deletion of the adverse entry. OP-2 replied that the SBI card account was settled and updated in CIBIL, whereupon he again wrote on 16.01.2012 questioning the continued display of the outstanding dues. Upon his e-mail dated 31.01.2012 requesting the exact CIBIL record, OP-2 responded vide email dated 04.02.2012 stating that the CIBIL record was „correctly updated‟ but did not provide any supporting record. Upon issue of a legal notice on 20.06.2012, OP-3 responded on 03.07.2012 and 05.07.2012 that the CIR could not be corrected unless updated data was supplied by OP-1. On 12.07.2012, OP-2 conveyed that the striking off of his defaulter status was under consideration. The Complainant alleged that despite closure of his only credit card and acknowledgment of full settlement, his name continued to appear in the CIR for several years due to negligent reporting by OPs, resulting in denial of loans and financial facilities, and causing substantial financial loss, mental agony and damage to his creditworthiness.

5. On issue of notice, OPs-1 & 2 filed their written version and raised preliminary objections to the maintainability of the complaint. They contended that the complaint was barred by limitation, he is not a „consumer‟ under Section 2(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, and that he had not approached this Commission with clean hands. OPs contended that the agreement between the Complainant and OP-1 contained a binding arbitration clause which required all disputes to be referred to a sole arbitrator appointed by OPs, thereby excluding this Commission‟s jurisdiction. On merits, they contended that his primary and add-on card accounts had incurred penal charges due to part- payments and were zeroised under a settlement in November 2010. The requests for CIBIL updation in 2011 and 2012 were duly acted upon and the discrepancy was rectified. Therefore, no subsisting cau