HARYANA URBAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY vs Kamlesh Rani

-PETITIONER was the opposite party before the District Forum, where the respondent/complainant had filed a complaint alleging deficiency in service on the part of the petitioner.

BASIC facts are not in dispute that the complainant was allotted a plot in August 1986 but the possession of which was given after a delay of twelve years. It is in these circumstances, a complaint was filed before the District Forum, who allowed the complaint and directed the petitioner to pay interest @ 10% p. a. on the entire deposited amount from after two years from the date of deposit, i. e. , 20. 8. 1998 to 20. 3. 1998, i. e. , the date of offer of possession, along with Rs. 70,000 being the cost of escalation. Aggrieved by this order an appeal was filed before the State Commission without complying with the second proviso of Section 15 of the Consumer Protection Act, despite repeated opportunities the appellant did not comply with the requirement of law, i. e. , second proviso of Section 15 of CPA, spread over for a period of almost three years, in view of which the State Commission dismissed the Appeal. Aggrieved by this order this revision petition has been filed before us with a delay of 538 days. An application for condonation of delay has also been filed in which following grounds for condonation of delay have been taken: "4. That after receiving of the copy of the impugned order dated 20. 1. 2006 the matter required to be dealt with at various departments of the petitioner authority namely from the concerned Estate Officer to Legal Branch, ADA/dda to the Head of the Department namely Administrator/chief Administrator, then to Branch Incharge, then to the Assistant (Legal Branch) and again back via the same cumbersome lengthy procedure and marked to the Counsel and then again sent to the Legal Department by the Counsel as the appeal has to be vetted from the Legal Department.

That the procedure as mentioned above for which the delay occurred was beyond control because of bureaucratic hierarchical set up, which was neither deliberate nor intentional and the petitioner sincerely regret for the delay in filing revision petition. "

By any standard, this plea cannot be taken as sufficient explanation of condonation of delay of 538 days especially in view of the fact that this figure has been arrived at after setting-off 90 days for filing revision petition. It is not a delay of few days/few weeks, it is case of a delay of almost over an year and a half, in view of which we are unable to condone the delay as not been sufficiently explained, hence the application for condonation of delay is dismissed.

Even on merits, what we see is that there is no denying the fact that the respondent was allotted a plot in 1986, possession of which was offered in 1998. If in these circumstances, interest has been granted and only a nominal cost of escalation has been granted which is less than the settled law, it cannot be said to be illegal. As per settled law in the case of Ghaziabad Development Authority v. Balbir Singh, II (2004) CPJ 12 (SC)=iii (2004) SLT 161, decided on 17. 3. 2004, the complainant would have been entitled to the interest @ 12% p. a. and the escalation cost spread over a period of 12 years should have been calculated on the increased escalation based on PWD (CSR), which would have been much-much higher. In view of above, we find no ground to interfere with the order passed by the District Forum.

IN the aforementioned circumstances, we see no merit in this revision petition, hence the revision petition is dismissed both as barred by limitation and merits as well. We like to make a remark here with regard to the repeated history of delayed filing of petition as also not observing the second proviso of Section 15 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 resulting in poor showing on the part of the Statutory Authority like HUDA. In these circumstances we like to direct the Registry to send a copy of this order to the Chief Administrator, HUDA, Chandigarh with the direction that he may like to hold an internal inquiry as to why history of such cases are being repeated to the detriment of HUDA. Revision Petition dismissed.