Munmun Kaur
Published On: January 22, 2022 at 11:05 IST
Supreme Court on January 21, observed that the Revisional Jurisdiction of the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act is extremely limited.
Further, it should be exercised in cases as contemplated within the parameters specified in the provision itself i.e., when it appears to the National Commission that the State Commission had exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or had failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or had acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity.
The Facts of the case were that the Appellant Sunil Kumar Maity had to suffer a loss of ₹3 lakh since the bank incorrectly deposited the amount to another account with the name of Sunil Maity. This was due to a mix-up in giving the account numbers to the two persons due to similarities in their names.
The Consumer Commission had ruled in the Appellant’s favour which was also upheld by the State Commission. Later, the State Bank of India filed a revision petition before the NCDRC under Section 21 (b) of the Consumer Protection Act. The NCDRC called for a detailed report from a General Manager of SBI. The NCDRC while allowing the petitions stated that revisional jurisdiction allows “interference if grave misappreciation of evidence or superficial appraisal of a case is discernible on the part of the two fora below.”
The Appellant then approached the Supreme Court. A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi hearing the matter observed that the NCDRC itself exceeded its revisional jurisdiction by calling for the report from the bank and then coming to the conclusion that the two fora below had erred in not undertaking the requisite in-depth appraisal of the case, that too after solely relying on the report.
The Bench while setting aside the Order by NCDRC, observed that though a party can produce additional evidence at the appellate stage, the same has to be within the four corners of law, that is as contemplated in Order 41, Rule 27.