Sri Shyamal Gupta, Member

This Revision is preferred against the Order dated 18-05-2017 of the Ld. District Forum, Siliguri in CC/136/2015.

Case of the Revisionist, in short, is that, on 04-10-2016, it filed a petition before the Ld. District Forum stating that in terms of the provisions laid down u/s 8 of the under the Arbitration & Cconciliation Act, 1996, the complaint case was not maintainable against which the Respondent No. 1 filed one objection.  Thereafter, the Ld. District Forum fixed 27-02-2017 for hearing of the said petitions.  On the date fixed, for want of quorum, the date of hearing had to be deferred to 27-03-2017. However, on that day, due to Bar Resolution, the date of hearing was further adjourned to 27-04-2017.  On 27-04-2017, the Ld. District Forum surreptitiously fixed the matter on 18-05-2017 for proceeding ex parte against the Revisionist and on that day, the Ld. District Forum rejected the maintainability petition filed by the Revisionist and debarred the Revisionist from filing WV; hence, this Revision.

Heard both sides and gone through the documents on record.

Very recently, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in M/S Emaar MGF Land Limited & Anr. v. Aftab Singh Civil Appeal Nos. 23512-23513 of 2017 concurred with the findings of the Hon’ble National Commission that, notwithstanding the amendments made to Section 8 of the Arbitration Act, an Arbitration Clause in Buyer’s Agreement cannot circumscribe the jurisdiction of a Consumer Fora,.

Further, it appears that the Revisionist took recourse to Arbitration proceedings against the Respondent No. 1 in the year 2016; whereas, the instant complaint case was filed in the year 2015 and most significantly, it proceeded with said proceedings despite having full knowledge of filing of the complaint case by the Respondent/Complainant before the Ld. District Forum.  Thus, whatever be the outcome of the Arbitration proceedings, there was no valid reason to stall the complaint proceedings abruptly. 

For all these reasons, I find that the maintainability petition filed by the Revisionist, irrespective of whether the Revisionist remained present on the date of its hearing or not, would meet the same fate anyway.

However, taking into consideration the fact that owing to the Resolution adopted by the Siliguri Bar Association, the Ld. Advocate for the Revisionist could not turn up before the Ld. District Forum resulting which the matter was fixed ex parte against the Revisionist, I deem it appropriate, in the interests of natural justice to allow Revisionist to file its WV before the Ld. District Forum.

Accordingly, the Revision stands allowed in part.