Chief Post Master General & 2 Ors vs Garima Gupta (Since Minor Through Her Natural Guardian/father)

Delay condoned.

This Revision Petition, under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short "the Act"), by the Chief Post Master General and its functionaries, is directed against the order dated 21.11.2016, passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Rajasthan, Bench No.1 at Jaipur (for short "the State Commission") in First Appeal No.541 of 2016. By the impugned order, the State Commission has affirmed the order dated 14.01.2016, passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Jaipur-II (for short "the District Forum") in Complaint No.1025 of 2012. By the said order, while allowing the Complaint filed by the Respondent herein, through her father, alleging deficiency in service on the part of the Petitioners herein, in taking almost 7 days in delivering her application form by Speed Post for admission in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, which was otherwise expected to reach the destination within the City in 24 hours, the District Forum had directed the Petitioners to pay to the Complainant an amount of Rs. 20,000/- as compensation for the loss of one academic year, along with the litigation expenses, quantified at Rs. 5,000/-.

As expected, the sole ground on which the correctness and legality of the order, impugned in the Petition, is questioned by learned Counsel for the Petitioner is that Section 6 of the Indian Post Office Act, 1898 exonerates the Postal Department from any kind of liability on account of any loss, mis-delivery, delay or damage to the postal article in the course of transmission by post and therefore, both the Fora below erred in awarding the afore-noted compensation. It is submitted that at best the Complainant was entitled to the refund of 25/-, paid as postal charges, which the Petitioner was willing to refund.

We are of the view that the Petition is bereft of any merit.

On a pointed query by us, as to whether or not any enquiry was conducted by the Petitioner on receipt of the complaint about an inordinate delay of 7 days in delivery of the postal article, within the city itself, learned Counsel has candidly admitted that no such enquiry was made but on receipt of the complaint, while informing her that the delay had taken place due to "mis-sending" of the article, a compensation of 25/- was offered to her.

In light of the said admission, we do not find any Jurisdictional error in the concurrent finding of fact recorded by both the Fora below to the effect that the Petitioners had failed to bring on record any evidence to show that the said "mis-sending" was not on account of wilful act or default on the part of its employee, as stipulated in the latter part of Section 6 of the said Act.

In that view of the matter and having regard to the fact that a young student has lost a valuable one year in getting the admission in the Institution of her choice, the compensation of 20,000/- cannot be said to be excessive by any standard.

Resultantly, the Revision Petition fails and is dismissed accordingly.

At this juncture, it is also significant to note that the Appeal preferred by the Petitioners before the State Commission was barred by limitation in as much as there was a delay of 91 days in filing the same and even here there is a delay of 39 days in filing the present Revision Petition, which amply demonstrates the lackadaisical approach of the Petitioner Department at every stage of its affairs. Revision petition dismissed.