Delay of 14 days in filing the Revision Petition is condoned.

        This Revision Petition under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short “the Act”) has been filed by Andhra Bank (Opposite Party in the Complaint), against order dated 5.11.2012, passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Andhra Pradesh (for short “the State Commission”), in FAIA 2478/2012 in FASR 5934/202.  By the impugned order, the State Commission has declined to condone a delay of 177 days in filing the appeal by the Petitioner and has dismissed it as barred by limitation.

        We may note that in the said Appeal, the Petitioner had questioned the correctness of order dated 30.3.2012, passed by the East Godavari District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-I, Kakinada in C.C. No.23/2009, inter alia, directing the Petitioner to pay to the Complainant/respondent a sum of `1,00,000/- with interest @ 9% per annum from the date of the Complaint till realization along with costs of `2,000/-. 

In the application for condonation of delay filed by the Petitioner before the State Commission, the following explanation was furnished :

“The petitioner submits that the said order of the District Forum was received by the branch on 2.4.2012 and the Manager was on leave and the same was mixed up with the other papers in the bank and the new Manager took the charge in the month of June 2012 and the bank received a notice in the month of September 2012 from the complainant’s counsel claiming the amount of `1 lakh as awarded in C.C. No.23/2009 by the District Forum, Kakinada and on searching the papers the order copy of the District Forum was traced in the 1^st week of October and the Branch immediately contacted the higher authorities for filng the appeal and immediately the branch sent the papers to counsel at Hyderabad on 11.10.2012 for preferring the appeal and the counsel of the bank prepared the affidavit for condoning the delay and stay and sent the same for signatures of the concerned officer. “

We are of the opinion that the State Commission was justified in holdingthat the petitioner had failed to make out any sufficient cause for condonation of the said inordinate delay.  The afore-extracted explanation does not spell out as to when the Manager went on leave and for what period.  Admittedly, the order was received in the Branch on 2.4.2012 and it is hard to believe that the “Dak” of the Bank was not attended to by any one from the said date till June 2012 and thereafter by the successor Manager till the notice was received from the Complainant in the month of September 2012.  It is a case of sheer negligence, which cannot be condoned to the detriment of the Complainant, who is waiting for insurance claim on the death of her insured husband on 8.3.2009

Bearing in mind the observations of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Anshul Aggarwal vs. New Okhla Industrial  Development  Authority – (2011) 14 SCC 578,  to the effect that the entire object of expeditious adjudication of the consumer disputes gets defeated if belated appeals and revisions are entertained,  we decline to interfere with the impugned order in exercise of our revisionary jurisdiction.  Consequently, the Revision Petition is dismissed.