IN THE TAMIL NADU STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION, CHENNAI Present:Hon’ble Thiru. Justice R.SUBBIAH ... PRESIDENT F.A. No.1111 of 2024 (Against the Order, dated 10.10.2024, in C.C. SR No.923 of 2024, on the file of the DCDRC, Chennai-South)

Orders, dt:31.12.2024.

M.Swaminathan, First Floor, Door No.54, House of Kamalambal And Mahadeva Iyer, T.Nagar, Chennai-17. … Appellant/Complainant Vs.

Harikesanallur Venkatraman, No.9/3 Veera Raghavan Street, NCBS Colony, Nanganallur, Chennai 600 061. ... Respondent/Opp. Party Appellant : Party in person Respondent : Notice served.

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This First Appeal came up for final hearing on 31.12.2024 and, after hearing the Learned Counsel for appellant and perusing the materials on record and having stood over for consideration till this day, this Commission passes the following:-

O R D E R (Open Court)

R.Subbiah, J. President .

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This appeal is directed against the order, dated

10.10.2024, passed by the DCDRC, Chennai-South, rejecting the Complaint filed by the appellant herein as complainant in C.C. SR No.923 of 2024, at the SR Stage, on the ground that he is not a consumer since the services related to astrology as availed by him from the OP/respondent, falling under the contract of personal service, are excluded from the purview of ‘service’ as defined under the CP Act, 2019.

2. It is the core grievance of the appellant herein that, after being allured by the enticing visual propaganda of the respondent herein, in Television and Youtube channels that he is such a talented astrologer with deep knowledge in the field that, within 20 days from receiving payment of Rs.1,770/- towards service charges, he would cast horoscope and precise predictions with his collection of astrological table charts for the last 100 years, the appellant made payment in February-2024 enabling the astrologer to cast jathakam under thriganitha and vakkiya panchakam methods on two questions about his future, however, the astrologer failed to answer the said questions under the methods sought for by the complainant, within the assured period of time and such deficiency on the part of the astrologer impelled him to issue a legal notice during April, 2024 and the astrologer, by keeping silence all along, had suddenly refunded the sum through ATM transaction, without giving any intimation whatsoever to the customer.

According to the appellant, the very essence of the CP Act, 2019, as a whole, is that it embraces any kind of service that is made available to the consumers for their use on payment of consideration; while so, in the present instance, the service availed by the appellant from the astrologer is admittedly upon payment of consideration as demanded by the service-provider/astrologer and the conduct of the astrologer in having kept quiet for a long time without answering the astrological questions presented upon payment of due consideration and unilaterally refunding the charges received without even informing the customer clearly amounts to service deficiency and that being so, the exercise of the District Commission in passing a cryptical order by stating that the matter involves contract of personal service, which does not fall under the purview of the CP Act, is nothing but an attempt to shrink the definition of ‘service’, which is very wide in scope and broad in statutory sense, even to cover astrological services/consultations as well into the realm and hence, the impugned order of rejecting the complaint at the SR stage is liable to be interfered with, else, great prejudice would result to the appellant.

3. The respondent, despite notice, neither appeared nor represented by any counsel.

4. Perused the papers made available and examined the impugned order passed by the District Commission. The only simple question that arises for consideration in this appeal is –

“Whether the case of the appellant that astrological consultations fall within the ambit of ‘service’ as defined in the CP Act, 2019 is sound and