Petitioners/Opposite Parties being aggrieved by order dated 6.9.2011 passed in (F.A. No.1301 of 2010) by State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Rajasthan, Jaipur (for short ‘State Commission’) has filed the present revision petition under Section 21(b) of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short, ‘Act’). Alongwith it, an application seeking condonation of delay of 90 days has also been filed. 2. Brief facts are that Respondent/Complainant filed a complaint under the Act stating that he obtained an electricity connection for agriculture purpose from the petitioners. Respondent had been making the payment of all bills issued upon him and there were no arrears. The bill issued by petitioners for the month of November, 2009 mentioned a sum of Rs.28,657/-, in which Rs.26,657/- had been shown as arrears of the previous bill. Therefore, respondent prayed for quashing of the bill and also prayed that petitioners be directed to issue a revised bill. 3. The Petitioners in their reply stated that, a sum of Rs.26,627/- is outstanding against the respondent towards the charges of electricity consumed by him upto August, 2009. The respondent did not make the payment of charges of electricity consumed by him on time, so the said amount was carried on in the future bills. Hence, the complaint is liable to be dismissed. 4. District Forum, as per order dated 30.4.2010, partly allowed the complaint and ordered; “1. The bill of month of November, 2009 issued by Opposite Parties for a sum of Rs.26,267/- is quashed. The Opposite Party Corporation cannot recover the aforesaid amount from the Complainant through any bill or notice in future. However, if any amount is due towards charges of electricity consumed by the Complainant from October, 2007 the Opposite Parties would be at liberty to recover through revised bill. 2. Since a sum of Rs.26,267/- was not recovered by the mistake of the Corporation which ought to have been done 3 years before. The Nigam cannot recover the abovesaid amount because of legal infirmity. Therefore, it is not justified to award the costs of litigation to the Complainant.” 5. Being aggrieved, petitioners filed an appeal before the State Commission which dismissed the same vide the impugned order. 6. Hence, the present petition. 7. We have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners on the application for condonation of delay and gone through the record. 8. It has been argued by learned counsel for the Petitioners that delay has occurred due to the fact that Petitioner being a Corporation, the file has to be dealt with at various official levels and delay has occurred only due to Administrative reasons and same is unintentional and bonafide. In support of its contentions, learned counsel has relied upon a decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court reported as, State of Haryana Vs. Chandra Mani and others (1966) 3 Supreme Court Cases 132. 9. The main grounds on which condonation of delay is sought read as under:- “3. That the aforesaid Appeal in this case was disposed of by the learned State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Jaipur, Rajasthan by order dated 06.09.2011 copy of which was received in the office of the Petitioners in last week of October, 2011. Thereafter, the same was sent to the Office of the Company Secretary who in turn sent the files for legal opinion to the law department of the Petitioners Corporation. Upon receipt of the opinion of the legal department which advised for filing of Revision Petition before this Hon'ble Commission. Thereafter the Petitioners engaged the undersigned vide an engagement letter dated 02.01.2012. The authorized officer of the Corporation contacted the undersigned and sent file of the case in first Second week of February, 2012. 4. It is submitted that some of the vital documents have not supplied to the undersigned so he informed and requested for providing those documents. The same documents were provided by the Petitioners in a week. Thereafter, the undersigned sought some clarifications from the Petitioners and prepared a draft which was sent for approval and vetting to the Petitioners which took some time. 5. It is further stated that all the documents and order of the District Forum and Appeal before the learned State Commission are in Hindi. It also took time to get it translated in English. In these circumstances a delay of 90 days occurred in filing the Revision Petition which is totally unintentional and bona fide.” 10. It is well settled that “sufficient cause” for condoning the delay in each case is a question of fact. 11. In “Postmaster General and others Vs. Living Media India Limited and another, (2012) 3 Supreme Court Cases 563”, Hon'ble Supreme Court observed; “24. After referring various earlier decisions, taking very lenient view in condoning the delay, particularly, on the part of the Government and Government Undertaking, this Court observed as under; “29. It needs no restatement at our hands that the object for fixing time-limit for litigation is based on public policy fixing a lifespan for legal remedy for the purpose of general welfare. They are meant to see that the parties do not resort to dilatory tactics but avail their legal remedies promptly. Salmond in his Jurisprudence states that the laws come to the assistance of the vigilant and not of the sleepy. 30. Public interest undoubtedly is a paramount consideration in exercising the courts' discretion wherever conferred upon it by the relevant statutes. Pursuing stale claims and multiplicity of proceedings in no manner subserves public interest. Prompt and timely payment of compensation to the landlosers facilitating their rehabilitation/ resettlement is equally an integral part of public policy. Public interest demands that the State or the beneficiary of acquisition, as the case may be, should not be allowed to indulge in any act to unsettle the settled legal rights accrued in law by resorting to avoidable litigation unless the claimants are guilty of deriving benefit to which they are otherwise not entitled, in any fraudulent manner. One should not forget the basic fact that what is acquired is not the land but the livelihood of the landlosers. These public interest parameters ought to be kept in mind by the courts while exercising the discretion dealing with the application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act. Dragging the landlosers to courts of law years after the termination of legal proceedings would not serve any public interest. Settled rights cannot be lightly interfered with by condoning inordinate delay without there being any proper explanation of such delay on the ground of involvement of public revenue. It serves no public interest.” The Apex Court further observed; “27. It is not in dispute that the person(s) concerned were well aware or conversant with the issues involved including the prescribed period of limitation for taking up the matter by way of filing a special leave petition in this Court. They cannot claim that they have a separate period of limitation when the Department was possessed with competent persons familiar with court proceedings. In the absence of plausible and acceptable explanation, we are posing a question why the delay is to be condoned mechanically merely because the Government or a wing of the Government is a party before us. 28. Though we are conscious of the fact that in a matter of condonation of delay when there was no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or lack of bonafide, a liberal concession has to be adopted to advance substantial justice, we are of the view that in the facts and circumstances, the Department cannot take advantage of various earlier decisions. The claim on account of impersonal machinery and inherited bureaucratic methodology of making several notes cannot be accepted in view of the modern technologies being used and available. The law of limitation undoubtedly binds everybody including the Government. 29. In our view, it is the right time to inform all the government bodies, their agencies and instrumentalities that unless they have reasonable and acceptable explanation for the delay and there was bonafide effort, there is no need to accept the usual explanation that the file was kept pending for several months/years due to considerable degree of procedural red-tape in the process. The government departments are under a special obligation to ensure that they perform their duties with diligence and commitment. Condonation of delay is an exception and should not be used as an anticipated benefit for government departments. The law shelters everyone under the same light and should not be swirled for the benefit of a few. 30. Considering the fact that there was no proper explanation offered by the Department for the delay except mentioning of various dates, according to us, the Department has miserably failed to give any acceptable and cogent reasons sufficient to condone such a huge delay.” 12. Further, Apex Court in Anshul Aggarwal Vs. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, IV (2011) CPJ 63 (SC) has observed ; “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”. 13. In the application for condonation of delay, the petitioners have simply mentioned about their office procedure for the purpose of filing the revision. In the entire application it is nowhere mentioned as to what was the sufficient cause for not filing the revision in time. Moreover, petitioners have nowhere mentioned as to for which period the file remained pending and before which official at different levels. Nor the petitioners have mentioned what was the time taken at each level for getting the approval. Thus, application for condonation of delay is vague and the same has been filed without any justification. The petitioners while seeking condonation of delay have tried to take shelter in the red tape procedure which is prevalent in Government Bodies/Undertakings. It is well settled that a valuable right has accrued in favour of the respondent due to careless and negligence on the part of the petitioners and that right cannot be brushed aside lightly. 14. The observations made by Apex Court in “Postmaster General and others (Supra) and Anshul Aggarwal (Supra) are fully attracted to the facts and circumstances of the present case. 15. Even on merits there are concurrent findings of facts given against the petitioners by two fora below. 16. Thus, gross negligence, deliberate inaction and lack of bonafide are imputable to the petitioners. We do not find any sufficient ground to condone the long delay of 90 days. Hence, application for condonation of delay stand dismissed. Consequently, the revision petition filed by the petitioners stand dismissed being barred by limitation. 17. No order as to cost. | 
