‘Disability certificates not a service’

‘Disability certificates not a service’

PUNE: The District Consumer Forum rejected the claim of a former NDA lecturer that Sassoon General Hospital provided deficiency in service while issuing him a permanent disability certificate to the extent of 41 per cent. The forum held that it is not ‘service’ for ‘consideration’ but a statutory duty of the civil hospital (State).

Dr Kamal Chandra Tiwari, a resident of Sinhagad Road, who used to teach political science to cadets of the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakwasla, had filed the complaint earlier this year. The opposite parties were Sassoon Hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr Ajay Taware, Resident Medical Officer Dr AA Mane, Dr Swapnil Bhise of the Orthopaedics Department and dean of the hospital, besides Director (health services) of the State government. 

Tiwari filed a 23-page complaint and argued his case at length. However, the forum observed, “It is pertinent to note that nowhere in the consumer complaint has the complainant pleaded that he had paid any kind of consideration to the opposite parties for grant of permanent disability certificate, which is pre-requisite condition to become a consumer, within the meaning of Section-2(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.”

As per the forum, even assuming but without admitting that the complainant paid certain fees, as may be prescribed by the State government, still payment of such fees would not amount to payment of consideration as the opposite parties were performing statutory duty and no action under the act would lie against them. 

“In this situation, therefore, a person who pays certain fees to a government civil hospital for grant of the certificate does not become a consumer nor, do the officers appointed by the government to grant such permanent disability certificate render any service within the meaning of the act. They only perform their statutory duties to raise and collect State revenue, which is a part of the sovereign power of the State. The fact that in the course of grant of such certificate, there may be some negligence, omission or deficiency, does not convert the government civil hospital into a service provider for a consideration, nor convert the complainant into a consumer, who can make a complaint under the act. We are clearly of the view that the opposite parties are not service providers and the complainant is not a consumer and consequently, the complaint under the act, will not be maintainable against the opposite parties. The complainant has certainly wrongly knocked the doors of this forum,’’ states the judgement by Forum President VP Utpat and members Onkar Patil and Kshitija Kulkarni.

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