SURENDRA PARMAR vs BAI HAVLI

THE present revision petition has been filed by Dr.Surendra Parmar (hereinafter referred to as the Petitioner) against the order of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Gujarat (hereinafter referred to as the State Commission) which had dismissed his appeal on the grounds of there being a delay of 1261 days in filling the appeal.

COUNSEL for the Petitioner was present and requested that the delay of 1261 may be condoned on the grounds that the advocate who was entrusted with the case, Shri J.K. Desai, was suffering from Cirrhosis of Lever with Hepatitis B and died on 31.10.2003. Thereafter the Petitioners mother who was suffering from multiple diseases expired on 14.12.2003. Soon after in 2004 the niece of the Petitioner was detected as suffering from Peripheral Thrombosis and Petitioner had to attend to her treatment in Hyderabad for about six months. It is because of all these misfortunes which are extenuating circumstances that the appeal could not be filed in time. COUNSEL for Petitioner also submitted a ruling of the Honble Supreme Court in Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag Vs. Katiji AIR 1987 SC 1353 stating that this ruling was relevant in the present case because he had shown sufficient cause for the delay and, therefore, it deserved to be condoned in the interest of justice. We have considered the averments of the learned counsel for the Petitioner. We note that the order was passed on 03.05.2001 and the advocate who was entrusted with this case expired in 2003. The mother of the Petitioner also expired in that year. The treatment for the illness of his niece for which the Petitioner had to go for a period of six months in Hyderabad occurred in 2004. However, the appeal was filed on 26.06.2007. Therefore, there has been no explanation at all as to what led to the further delay in filing the appeal from the middle of 2004 to the middle of 2007. Section 15 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 prescribes that any person aggrieved by an order passed by the District Forum may prefer an appeal against such order to the State Commission within a period of 30 days from the date of the order. There are many judgments of the Apex Court as well as this Commission that if a complaint is barred by time, the consumer fora would be committing an illegality in deciding the case and that the limitation period is a sort of a legislative command to the consumer fora to examine on its own whether the complaint has been filed within the limitation period. In the instant case the appeal had been filed far beyond the period of limitation and that too without any convincing reason to explain the delay. The judgement of the Supreme Court in Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag (supra) cited by the Petitioner is of no help to him because leave alone sufficient cause, in fact no plausible reason or cause has been shown to explain the inordinate delay in filing the appeal. We, therefore, see no merit in this revision petition and the same is dismissed with no order as to costs.