New India Assurance Co Ltd vs R THIRUMURUGAN

THE appellants were the opposite parties before the State Commission, where the respondents had filed a complaint alleging deficiency in service on the part of the appellants.

VERY briefly the facts leading to filing this complaint were that the respondent / complainant who was a consumer of electricity supplied by the appellant, received bills up to 2001 which he found to be inflated as according to him there was mis-calculation of not applying the multiplier of 2/3 and secondly, the supply of electricity was disconnected on 5. 5. 2001 when the rice shelling was still in progress. It is in these circumstances, that a complaint was filed before the State Commission, who after quashing the demand raised by the appellants, directed them to raise fresh demand for the relevant period which should be on the basis of the same period of previous year and once this amount is paid, the connection be restored. Aggrieved by this order, the appellants filed this appeal before us with a delay of 72 days. It was the case of the appellant that they had received the certified copy of the order dated 20. 2. 2006 through post, specially the third appellant/opposite party, i. e. , the Executive Engineer, only on 12. 6. 2006 and the appeal has been filed on 12. 7. 2006, hence the appeal is within limitation.

At the stage of admission, not finding this plea prima facie, justified, we asked for affidavits to be filed by the appellants and also obtained the report of the State Commission about the dates on which the order of the State Commission was sent to the parties. As per report of the Registry of the State Commission, the copy of the order was despatched on 30. 3. 2006 through a registered cover and they were sent to all the four appellants separately and those letters have not come back undelivered from which it can be presumed that these have been received by the addressees.

IN the affidavit filed before us, in response to our direction dated 24. 5. 2007, the impugned order dated 20. 2. 2006 is now stated to have been received on 5. 4. 2006 in the offices of 2nd and 4th appellants. We are unable to appreciate as to how the delay of over 60 days is sought to be explained. It must be made clear that in the application for condonation of delay, nowhere, it has been mentioned that the orders were received by two of the appellants only on 5. 4. 2006. All along in the application for condonation of delay, it is vehemently and repeatedly stated that copy of the impugned order dated 20. 2. 2006 were received by the Sr. Executive Engineer (Operation) at Rajpura only on 12. 6. 2006.

THE least we expect from a public authority is to come clean and approach with clean hands, which has not been done in this case which is substantiated by the affidavit filed on behalf of the appellants as also the report of the Registry of the State Commission. There is no application for condonation of delay of 60 days in filing the appeal before this Commission. In view of above facts and circumstances, when there is no application for condonation of delay, keeping in mind that the orders were received by some of the appellants on 5. 4. 2006 and appeal has been filed on 12. 7. 2006 as also the fact that the real facts of the receipt of the order were sought to be concealed from us, we are not in a position to condone the delay and hold this appeal to be time-barred. In view of above, this appeal is dismissed as barred by limitation. Appeal dismissed.