Director Central State Farm, Jaitsar vs Virendra Singh S/O Vishun Dayal

THE affidavit filed by the petitioner and Vakalatnama on behalf of respondent no. 1 taken on record. Entry be made. This revision petition is directed against the order of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Uttar Pradesh, whereby the said Commission passed the following order: -

"It is hereby ordered that the respondent No. 2/opposite party no. 2 Director Central State Form Jaitsar -335309, District Sri Ganganagar Rajasthan should examine the losses suffered in crop within 1 month and pay compensation. The amount computed towards mental agony is Rs. 5,000/ - and the cost of the proceeding Rs. 500/ -, the same shall also be paid to complainant/appellant.

The compliance of above order/decision should be made within 2 months. If this has not been done, then the opposite party no. 2/respondent no. 2 should pay interest @ 12% on above amount."

THE complainant is a farmer. He filed a complaint alleging that he had purchased two quintals and 80 kg seeds marketed by Central State Farm, Jaitsar in District Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan and sown the said seeds in his fields using DAP Fertilizer and the Bio -Fertilizer. It was alleged in the complaint that yield of the groundnut, on development of the plant was found to be only 20%, the loss being as much as 80%. According to the complainant, he got the fields inspected from the Block Development Officer, and later lodged a complaint with the petitioner. Since no compensation was paid to the complainant, he approached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, seeking a sum of Rs. 2,86,875/ - as compensation alongwith interest on the said amount.

THE complaint was resisted by the petitioner, which, inter alia, stated that the complainant had not purchased the seeds directly from it. Several other pleas were taken in the reply filed by the petitioner. The District Forum, vide its order dated 02.09.2009, dismissed the complaint. Being aggrieved from the order of the District Forum, the complainant approached the concerned State Commission by way of an appeal. The order impugned quoted above was passed by the State Commission in the aforesaid appeal.

SINCE , there was a delay of 69 days in filing the revision petition, I.A. No. 4742/2014 has been filed, seeking condonation of delay in filing the revision petition. It is stated in the application seeking condonation of delay in filing the revision petition that the order in question was received in the Head Office of the petitioner on 18.02.2014 and on the same day, the comments were called from CSF, Jaitsar. The comments were sent by CSF, Jaitsar on 19.02.2014, whereupon the Head Office requested CSF, Jaitsar as well as the RO Lucknow to send the copies of the complaint, reply and the order of the District Forum. The aforesaid documents were received by the Head Office on 22.02.2014. The documents were then sent to the legal advisor of the Corporation for opinion. The opinion of the legal advisor was received on 28.04.2014. It is further stated in the application that thereafter, the amalgamation and merger of State Farms Corporation of India Ltd. with National Seeds Corporation Ltd. was approved and the same was conveyed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India on 05.05.2014. It is alleged that due to the aforesaid merger, and the consequent shifting of staff and records from SFCIL, Nehru Place to the National Seeds Corporation Ltd. at Pusa Complex Office, some delay occurred in the matter. The matter was then submitted to the competent authority and a decision was taken by the competent authority in May, 2014. Thereafter the file was given to the advocate on 11.06.2014. Some more documents were required and the same were made available to the counsel on 20.06.2014.

IT would be seen from the application that though it is stated that all the documents had been received by the Head Office on 26.02.2014 and thereafter the documents were sent to the legal advisor of the Corporation for his opinion, the application does not disclose on which date the documents were sent to the legal advisor. More importantly, even after receipt of the opinion of legal advisor on 28.04.2014, no urgency in the matter was exhibited by the officials of the petitioner Corporation. The process of amalgamation and merger of State Farms Corporation of India Ltd. with National Seeds Corporation Ltd., in our opinion could not have come in the way of the petitioner going ahead with the filing of the revision petition, considering that the matter has already been examined and even the opinion of legal advisor had already been received by 28.04.2014.

IT is stated in the application that the file was submitted to the competent authority which took the decision in the matter in May, 2014. However, neither the date of submitting the file to the competent authority nor the date on which the decision was taken by the competent authority has been indicated in the application. Even after May, 2014, the petitioner did not show any urgency and did not file the revision petition. In our view, considering that the matter had already been delayed for quite sometime, the officials of the petitioner Corporation instead of sending the file and the papers to the advocate in instalments ought to have taken the file to the chamber of the counsel and should have got the revision petition drafted and filed, immediately after the decision of the competent authority in May, 2014.

THE Hon''ble Supreme Court in Anshul Aggarwal vs. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, 2011 4 CPJ 63 interalia held as under: "It is also apposite to observe that while deciding an application filed in such cases for condonation of delay, the Court has to keep in mind that the special period of limitation has been prescribed under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, for filing appeals and revisions in Consumer matters and the object of expeditious adjudication of the Consumer disputes will get defeated, if this Court was to entertain highly belated petitions filed against the orders of the Consumer Foras".

In Post Master General and others vs. Living Media India Ltd. and another, 2012 3 SCC 563, the Hon''ble Apex Court observed as under:

Though we are conscious of the fact that in a matter of condonation of delay when there was no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or lack of bonafide, a liberal concession has to be adopted to advance substantial justice, we are of the view that in the facts and circumstances, the Department cannot take advantage of various earlier decisions. The claim on account of impersonal machinery and inherited bureaucratic methodology of making several notes cannot be accepted in view of the modern technologies being used and available. The law of limitation undoubtedly binds everybody including the Government.

In our view, it is the right time to inform all the government bodies, their agencies and instrumentalities that unless they have reasonable and acceptable explanation for the delay and there was bonafide effort, there is no need to accept the usual explanation that the file was kept pending for several months/years due to considerable degree of procedural red -tape in the process. The government departments are under a special obligation to ensure that they perform their duties with diligence and commitment. Condonation of delay is an exception and should not be used as an anticipated benefit for government departments. The law shelters everyone under the same light and should not be swirled for the benefit of a few.

Considering the fact that there was no proper explanation offered by the Department for the delay except mentioning of various dates, according to us, the Department has miserably failed to give any acceptable and cogent reasons sufficient to condone such a huge delay.

ONE of the objectives behind enactment of Consumer Protection Act is to grant expeditious relief to the consumer and that is why the act enjoins upon the consumer forum to decide the complaint, as far as is possible within the period of three months. The aforesaid objective, in our opinion, cannot be achieved, if we condone the delay as a matter of course, without a satisfactory explanation for the delay having been given.

THE learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the order passed by the State Commission is wholly without jurisdiction and perverse and such an order can be questioned at any stage, including in the execution proceedings. At this stage, we are examining only the application for condonation of delay in filing the revision petition, and therefore do not propose to go into the question as to whether the order of the State Commission is without jurisdiction or not. We, however, would like to take note of the fact that the State Commission, instead of straightaway awarding any compensation, has left it to the Director General State Farms, Jaitsar to examine the matter and quantify the losses suffered by the complainant.

IN the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the view that the petitioner has failed to satisfactorily explain the delay in filing the revision petition. The application seeking condonation of delay in filing the revision petition is, therefore, dismissed. Since, we have dismissed the application seeking condonation of delay in filing the revision petition, the revision petition is dismissed as barred by limitation.