Case: Unit Trust Of India Vs. Ravinder Kumar Shukla

2. Briefly stated that the facts are as follows:The Appellant is a statutory corporation established under Section 3 of the UTI Act, 1963. As part of its activities the Appellants float various schemes. Under the various schemes from time to time, the Appellant issue cheques towards maturity amount of the units purchased and / or towards repurchase value. It appears that the Appellant normally draw Account Payee, Non-transferable and not Negotiable cheques and send them to the payee by registered post3. The Appellant started receiving a large number of complaints from unit holders alleging non-receipt of the cheques. In all 1600 unit holders had not received cheques of the value of the app. Rs. 3 Crores 35 lakhs. All these cheques were intercepted, new accounts opened in Banks/Post Offices in the names of payees of the cheques and thereafter the monies were withdrawn leaving a minimum balance in the accounts. In respect of this colossal fraud, F.I.Rs. have been lodged, investigations and prosecution are in progress4. As the unit holders had not received the money, they filed complaints in various District Forums. The District Forums have held that the Appellants are bound to pay the amounts to the unit holders. Most of the Appeals and/ or Revision Petitions have been dismissed. Against the dismissal of the Appeals / Revisions by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, these Appeals have been filed5. The Consumer Forums have held that there was negligence on the part of the Appellant. It has been held that the post offices were agents of the Appellant and, therefore, the loss, if any, has to be borne by the Appellant. It has been held that as the Appellant had not paid the unit holders, the unit holders are entitled to receive the money from the Appellant.

Court's reasoning:
9. Thus the law is that in the absence of any contract or request from the payee, mere posting would not amount to payment. In cases where there is no contract or request, either express or implied, the post office would continue to act as the agent of the drawer. In that case the loss is of the drawer10. We, therefore, asked Mr. Bhat whether in any of the matters there was any proof of any contract that the amounts could be sent by post or any proof that any request had been made by any of the payees that the amount be sent by post. Mr. Bhat was also asked whether there was any proof of any practice from which it can be implied that the payee had requested / consented to have the cheques sent by post. Time was taken from this Court on two occasions in order to ascertain whether in any of the matters any such proof had been filed. After making inquiries and taking inspections of the papers from the lower, Mr. Bhat very fairly stated that there was no proof in any of these matters11. Mr. Bhat next argued that these are not the matters in which the Consumers Forum had jurisdiction to adjudicate. He submitted that there was no deficiency of service as there was no negligence on the part of the Appellant. All the Forums have on facts held that there was an obligation to send the amounts and that there was negligence. These are questions of facts. We see no reason to interfere on questions of facts