Aggrieved by the concurrent finding and orders dated 22.03.2005 and 01.12.2008 passed by the District Consumer Forum, Jaipur and Rajasthan State -2- Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Jaipur respectively, the Government of Rajasthan, Director and Dy. Director of the State Insurance & GPF Department, Jaipur have chosen to approach this Commission with these proceedings purportedly under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Even before we dwell on the merits of the petition, we may notice that this petition has been filed after undue delay of 176 days. This period, of course, excludes the 90 days period provided for filing such a petition. An application for condonation of delay has been filed. The only reason given for the delay is that there has been a change in the panel of State counsel and, therefore, the petition could not be filed promptly. To say the least, this is not at all a ground for petitioner-State to seek condonation of delay. In any case, we do not consider that it affords sufficient cause in order to exercise the judicial discretion of this Commission in their favour. The application is, accordingly, declined. 2. Even then we have examined the grounds on which the findings and order of the fora below are sought to be challenged. It is once again reiterated by the learned counsel for the petitioner State that the State Government could not have been called upon to pay the insurance amount because neither the FIR was lodged in this case nor the body of the deceased was subjected to postmortem examination in order to ascertain the cause of the death. We have noted this submission only to be rejected because in the case in hand the factum of death -3- of the deceased through a snake bite has been established by cogent evidence, inasmuch as a certificate has been issued by the Senior Medical Officer of the petitioners-State Government itself in this regard. The complainant coming from a rural background and her husband being employed as a cattle guard in a forest area, was not expected to undertake such formalities as the petitioner State Government wants her to do. In our view, the State Government was not well advised to challenge the orders of the fora below and they ought to have accepted the finding and paid off the amount of insurance without any rancor. 3. In the circumstances, the revision petition is dismissed in limine. |
