Same Interest? Suit Can Be Filed In Joint Capacity

• A bench of the Hon’ble SC in the case of Brigade Enterprises Limited vs. Anil Kumar Virmani and ors. has held that when an array of consumers have the same interest in a suit, they do not necessarily have to file a representative suit, they can file a joint complaint instead.
• The bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian, while distinguishing between a complaint filed in a representative capacity and a joint complaint, observed:

“ A joint complaint stands in contrast to a complaint filed in a representative capacity. For attracting the provisions of section 35, the complaint should be on behalf of or for the benefit of numerous consumers having the same interest”.

But this does not mean that where there a few consumers and not “numerous”, they cannot join together but instead should file separate and independent complaints.

• The Court, while referring to section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act said that the word ‘consumer’ as defined in the Consumer Protection Act would be deemed to include the plural, that is, consumers as well as according to the Court, there is nothing repugnant in the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act which would indicate that the word “ “consumer” would not include the plural.
• In the present case, 91 persons who has purchased 51 residential apartments in a complex which contains 1134 apartments, filed a joint complaint in National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. This complaint was accompanied by an application under section 35 of the Consumer Protection Act seeking a joint prosecution not just of those 91 applicants, but of several others. The NCDRC allowed the application. It is against this order that the present case was filed.
• While interpreting the explanation to Order 1 Rule 8 of CPC, the Court held that this explanation clearly distinguishes between persons having the same interest in one suit and persons having the same cause of action. It was necessary that the persons for whose benefit Section 35 is invoked should have the same interest.

And now, a question for our aspirants-

When did the Consumer Protection Act comeinto force?