UNITED INDIA INSURANCE CO. LTD vs Mahesh Chandra Arya

THE State Commission rendered the impugned order on 23.12.2011. The revision petition was filed before this Court on 23.10.2012. There is a delay of 211 days in filing the present petition. It is stated that certified copy of the order of State Commission was received on 27.12.2011 but the office of the petitioner-insurance company received it in the first week of January, 2012. The matter was sent to legal department, Uttarakhand. They decided to seek the opinion of their penal advocates for further course of action. The relevant documents were sent to penal advocates of the petitioner- company which opined that the revision petition be filed before the National Commission. The file was sent to Regional Office at Delhi and the file was handed over to penal advocate with the directions to file the revision petition. There is a delay of 211 days, which the petitioner seeks to condone.

LEARNED counsel for the petitioner contended that delay was caused due to final opinion was being taken about the filing of the revision petition. It is now well settled that the departmental and procedural delays are not to be considered. There is inordinate delay of 211 days. It cannot be-said that the explanation given above constitute a sufficient cause. The petitioner-insurance company is required to explain day to day delay but the said details are missing. The various authorities go to dovetail with the facts of this case and legal position.

IN Anshul Aggarwal v. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, IV (2011) CPJ 63 (SC), it has been held that "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 Balwant Singh (Dead) v. Jagdish Singh and Ors., V (2010) SLT 790=III (2010) CLT 201 (SC)=(Civil Appeal no. 1166 of 2006), decided by the Apex Court on 08.07.2010, it was held: "The party should show that besides acting bona fide, it had taken all possible steps within its power and control and had approached the Court without any unnecessary delay. The test is whether or not a cause is sufficient to see whether it could have been avoided by the party by the exercise of due care and attention. [Advanced Law Lexicon, P. Ramanatha Aiyar, 3rd Edition, 2005] "

In other case, titled as "Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd. v. Vasantkumar H. Khandelwal and Anr., " [Revision petition No. 1848 of 2012, decided on 21.05.2012], the Bench of this Commission headed by Hon''ble Mr. Justice Ashok Bhan, has rejected the explanation that the file was moving from table to table to get the permission to file that appeal. It was further held that under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the District Forum is supposed to decide the complaint within a period of 90 days from the date of filing and in case of some expert evidence is required to be led then within 150 days. The said Bench dismissed the revision petition on the ground that it was delayed by 104 days.

SEE also the law laid down in Office of the Chief Post Master General and Ors. v. Living Media India Ltd. and Anr., I (2012) CLT 338 (SC)=II (2012) SLT 312=2012 STPL (Web) 132 (SC).

CONSEQUENTLY , we find that the present case is barred by time. We have also perused the case on merits. It stands proved that the driver of the vehicle was not carrying the valid licence. The State Commission has placed reliance on Purushottam Kumar Jain v. Oriental Insurance Company Limited and Another, I (2002) CPJ 218; United India Insurance Company Limited v. Gajpal Singh Rawat, 2010 (1) UC 220 and many other authorities. We find no flaw therein.

WE dismiss the revision petition on merits as well as barred by time. Revision Petition dismissed.