When you buy a product or service from a company located in say, Mumbai, through the internet and there is a defect in the product or deficiency in the service, do you have to file a case before the consumer forum in Mumbai or can you file it before the forum in Mysore? You can file the case before the Mysore forum itself, says a recent judgement from Meghalaya State Consumer Commission (click here).
In the case before the Meghalaya State Commission, an elderly person residing in Shillong booked a flight from Delhi to Jaipur from Deccan Airlines whose head office is in Bengaluru. The booking was done on the internet and the fare paid through credit card. When the person and his wife undertook the journey, the luggage was lost and the they had to undergo a lot of difficulties.
The consumer filed a case before the District Consumer Forum, Shillong claiming deficiency in service by the airline. The airline objected that the forum did not have territorial jurisdiction to hear the case since, the airline office was in Bengaluru and the flight for which money had been paid was between Delhi and Jaipur. According to Sec. 11 of the Consumer Protection Act, a case can be filed only before the consumer forum of the place in which the opposite party resides or conducts business or the place in which the cause of action arises. The airline argued that the Shillong Forum does not have jurisdiction on any of these counts and that the case could have been filed only in Bengaluru, Delhi or Jaipur. But the forum dismissed this objection saying that the fare (paid through credit card) had been debited at the Shillong branch of Vijaya Bank and so the Shillong forum had territorial jurisdiction to hear the case. It then proceeded to hear the case and awarded a compensation of Rs. 72,000 to the consumer.
The airline then went in appeal before the Meghalaya State Consumer Commission. It again argued that the forum had no territorial jurisdiction to hear the complaint. So the Commission considered the issue carefully and gave a detailed judgement about the territorial jurisdiction of consumer courts in internet disputes.
The Commission noted that the Consumer Protection Act was enacted in 1986 when internet commerce was not in vogue and so it does not expressly consider issues such as territorial jurisdiction of consumer courts in internet commerce disputes. It said that the territorial jurisdiction of the forum of the place where the cause of action arises is very important in such disputes.
The Supreme Court has held (AIR 1989 SC 1239) that in contract disputes, a case can be filed in the court in whose territorial jurisdiction, acceptance to the contract was communicated. Courts have routinely held that when an airline issues a ticket to a consumer, the airline and the customer are entering into a contract. So the purchase of a ticket from Air Deccan (which is the source of the present dispute) was equivalent to entering a contract with the airline. In the present case, the contract was entered into and was accepted by sending e-mails. Again according to Sec 11(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, an e-mail is deemed to be dispatched at the sender's place and received at the addressee's place. Combining all the above, the Commission said that the contract to purchase the airline ticket was accepted at the place of the customer and so he can file the case before his local consumer forum.
This well-argued judgement is very useful to internet purchasers. Since it allows them to approach their local consumer fora, getting compensation for defective goods becomes much easier.
Dwarkanath Narayan
