THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.CHANDRAIAH W.P.NOs. 28257, 28308 AND 28294 OF 2010 COMMON O R D E R (Per the Hon’ble Sri Justice Ghulam Mohammed) Heard both the counsel. 2. The writ petitioners are the buildings. The respondents filed complaint under Section 2(1) (O) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1996 before the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Hyderabad alleging deficiency of service and sought for a direction to complete the construction and handover the possession of flats or in the alternative refund the amount paid by them along with interest. Even before filing their written version, as contemplated under Section 13 of the Act, 1996, the writ petitioners filed petitions, raised objection stating that clause 14 of the agreement entered into between parties, provides for settlement of dispute under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and the hence invoking the jurisdiction of the Commission under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1996, is barred. By the impugned order dated 13.9.2010, the State Commission holding that existence of arbitration clause in the agreement is not a bar for entertaining the complaint by the Consumer Fora, dismissed the petitions. Challenging the same, the present writ petitions are filed. 3. The issue involved in the present writ petitions is no longer res integra. A Co-ordinate Division Bench of this court, in W.P.No.18276/2011 and batch dated 29.4.2011, to which one of us (Ghulam Mohammed,J) was a member, held as under: “ Having regard to the interpretation given by the Supreme Court in FAIR AIR ENGINEERS PVT. LTD (1996(6) SCC 385) with regard Section 3 of the 1986 Act and the ratio in LUCKNOW DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY {(1994(1) SCC 243}, we are of the view that the 1986 Act, being a special enactment, created an additional remedy in favour of the consumers to raise consumer disputes before the Fora constituted under the said Act, and that Section 8 of the Arbitration Act does not have the effect of taking away such a remedy from the consumers as in the case of civil suits, which are in the nature of common law remedies. If a party chooses to avail a remedy other than the consumer dispute, he shall be free to do so because the remedy under the 1986 Act is not in derogation of the other remedies available to such a party and he cannot be denied such right on the ground of availability of an alternative remedy, such as Arbitration Act as Section 3 of the 1986 Act is intended to provide an additional remedy to a party and the same is not meant to deny such a remedy to him. Further, by virtue of Section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act the parties can undoubtedly resort to filing of the complaint as specified under Section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act. The restriction as to the inherent jurisdiction would not come in the way of the complainant to file the complaint, provided he fulfills the conditions mentioned in Section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act. In this view of the matter, the order passed by the State Commission does not suffer from any legal infirmity and it cannot be said that there is inherent lack of jurisdiction to entertain and adjudicate the complaint filed by respondents before it. For the foregoing discussion, the writ petitions are merit less and are accordingly dismissed. No costs.” 4. In view of the above judgment of this court, the present writ petitions are dismissed. No costs. -------------------------------- GHULAM MOHAMMED,J --------------------------------- G.CHANDRAIAH,J Date:28.07.2011 AVS