HARYANA URBAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY vs KAUR SINGH

THE petitioner was the opposite party before the District Forum where the respondent/complainant had filed a complaint alleging deficiency in service.

UNDISPUTED facts of the case are that the respondent/complainant was allotted a plot No. 11 in Sector 26, Panchkula of which possession was offered on 25.6.1999, allegedly, without completing the development work and since the repeated requests to complete the development work and hand over the possession was not materialising, a complaint was filed before the District Forum, Panchkula who after hearing the parties dismissed the complaint vide its order dated 13.10.2003 holding that the development work is complete. The respondent/complainant filed another complaint on 30.10.2003 alleging deficiency in service on the part of the petitioner by way of issuing demand notice dated 19.6.2003 for Rs. 5,32,994 which, as per allegation of the complainant, largely reflected charging of compound interest on the enhanced price and praying for quashing this demand on this ground. The District Forum after hearing the second complaint, allowed it in following terms: "To recalculate the entire account of the complainant keeping in mind that only simple contractual rate interest is payable (and not to charge compound interest) and furnish a copy of the same to the complainant; and Also pay Rs. 1,000 as costs of proceedings. Let the order be complied with within a period of one month from today."

Aggrieved by this order an appeal was filed before the State Commission after a delay of 422 days for which application for condonation of delay was filed but State Commission was not impressed by the explanation and the reasoning given for explaining the delay and found it to be not a sufficient cause, hence dismissed the appeal. Aggrieved by this order, this revision petition has been filed before us.

WE have very carefully gone through the application of condonation of delay filed before the State Commission, also heard the learned Counsel for the petitioner and perused the material on record and like State Commission, we are not at all impressed the way delay of 422 days is sought to be explained by purely failing to exercise any internal control with a view to adhere to the statutory time limit. The official callousness and carelessness by way of internal movements and lack of follow-up by the petitioner, cannot be a ground for condoning the delay. The State Commission, in our view, rightly held the appeal to be time barred and we are in full agreement with the reasoning given in the detailed order and petitioner failing to show sufficient cause for not filing the appeal within the prescribed time. Even on merits, we find that what has been directed is only to re-calculate the entire amount due from the complainant keeping in mind that only simple contractual rate of interest is demanded and not compound interest. The District Forum, while allowing the complaint of the respondent/complainant and granting the necessary relief has relied upon the judgment of the Hon''ble High Court of Punjab in the case of Gianender Singh v. HUDA, 2003 (1) PLR 140, wherein the Hon''ble High Court has held that HUDA is not entitled to charge compound interest, which itself was based on the decision of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in the case titled HUDA v. Bhatia Brothers, decided on 11.9.2000 in SLP filed by HUDA.

THIS Commission also has occasion to deal with the same issue more than once and have consistently held that rate of interest chargeable from the allottees would be on simple interest basis and not on compound interest basis. In fact, it is a two-way traffic - whenever the Commissions or the Courts have awarded interest against HUDA, they have also been given interest on simple interest basis and not on compound interest basis. In the aforementioned circumstances, we see no merit in this Revision Petition, hence dismissed. Revision Petition dismissed.