Who is a customer/consumer

1. In the instant case you are not paying anything to the Bank for taking its service which you do when you deposit money with it and take its service,

 

2. Here you can not be called a consumer of the Bank as per the definitiion provided in the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act, 2002. 

I have a different view.  Consumer need not be buyer himself. End user is also consumer.

1. As per section 2(d) of Consumer Protection (Amendment)  Act,2002, a consumer is   defined as 'any person who buys any goods or services for a consideration  but does not include any person whi buys such goods for any commercial purpose',

 

2. In the instant matter, the quesrist has not bough the services of the Bank against consideration but simply has deposited the fees of her daughter in the account of the school,

 

3. So, he is not a consumer as per the above act for which his matter des not fall under the jurisdiction of Consumer Forum to be heard.

I am reproducing full section 2(d) which includes 2(d)(ii) also

 

(d) “consumer” means any person who-

(i) buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any user of such goods other than the person who buys such goods for consideration paid or promised or partly paid or partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment when such use is made with the approval of such person, but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or for any commercial purpose; or

(ii) [hires or avails of] any services for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any beneficiary of such services other than the person who [hires or avails of] the services for consideration paid or promised, or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payments, when such services are availed of with the approval of the first-mentioned person;

2[Explanation: For the purposes of sub-clause (i), "commercial purpose" does not include use by a consumer of goods bought and used by him exclusively for the purpose of earning his livelihood, by means of self-employment;]

The question to be raised here is

 

1. Is the querist a benificiary of the Consumer being the scool?

2. He is just depositing the fees in the schools' account and is not getting any interest thereupon.

he is beneficiary.  School has hired his services for parents to enable deposit of fee.

1. Here the School, being the account holder, is the consumer of the Bank when the Bank is the seller/provider of the Banking services, 2. How is the quesrist a beneficiery of the said services provided by the Bank to its cunsumer, being the school? 3. He is just depositing his daughter's school fees to the school's account opened with the Bank for the purpose, as directed by the school, 4. He is not getting any benifit out of the said Bank account of the school.

Instead of two experts exchanging their opinions, whether they have clarified that why querist has not explained the background of his query and what is the purpose that he is raising the query?without knowing the details what is the use of fighting between yourselves.

Observation of Mr Kalaiselvan is correct.

 

The query is vague. The author should  elaborate facts so that he could get more suitable opinion.

1. I do not think that myself and Mr. Sudhir Kumar faught between ourselves,

 

2. We, both very humbly, exchanged our individual views and debated on law points,

 

3. None of us posted ' I agree with the experts' comment,

 

4. I expected that other experts also will contrubute their valued opinions to enlighten the furum members in this regard.

Just for my understanding what would be the situation in the case hereunder : 1) the school has an arrangement with the bank 2) parents of student deposit fees with the bank for the school 3) the bank misplaces the fee and the school penalises the student Who is liable to whom and under which law ? IMHO the bank is the agent of the school. Hence case lies against both of them . the parents / student are paying for the school services via the fee . So they are consumers and consumer act holds Will appreciate comments of others wrt above situation

The facility to deposit fees by the student/parent in Bank is an arrangement by the School with the Bank/Branch and such an arrangement is known to the Bank that it is for the benifit of the student to credit of his fees. The funds [fees] if duly credited belong to the school, but paid by the student/parent for the benifit of the student. The ultimate benificiary being the student [represented by his parent] can maintain a claim against the Bank for deficiency in service in not crediting the fees paid by him to the account of the school maintained by the Bank. The evidence of payment made [paid challan] would be sufficient to fix liability on the Bank

@Mr. Hardeep, 1. I find that your observation is right. The Bank is the agent of the school, 2. So, the fees are deposited by the students to the school to its agent being the Bank, 3. Here the student is the consumer to the school since he/she is buying the service from the school by paying the fees to the scholl through its prescribed agent, 4. However, the question raised here is, is the student a consumer to the Bank? Is he/she buying services from the Bank? 5. My opinion is 'NO',

I agree with Advocate Ganguly. The School has hired the Bank to collect fees from the Student. It is very clear that the Bank is providing services to the School and not student as such. Let ustake an example. A student has deposited the fees with the Bank, obtained the receipt and submitted to the school. Now suppose, the bank does not credit the fees to School's account. So the bank has failed to provide services to the school and not student because there was no such contract between the Bank and the student.

Thus student cannot be termed as customer/consumer of the Bank and cannot take legal action against the Bank as such.