ORDER NO. 9 DT. 11.7.11

HON’BLE JUSTICE MR. P.K.SAMANTA, PRESIDENT

Appellant is present through his Ld. Advocate.  None appears on behalf of the Respondent in spite of service of notice upon them.

This is a short Appeal against the order of dismissal of the application for setting aside the order of dismissal of the complaint on the ground of default.  On the date of hearing of the complaint case an adjournment was sought for on the ground of illness of the Ld. Advocate for the complainant.  Such prayer was rejected and consequently the complaint petition was dismissed on the ground of default.  An application for restoration of the complaint case upon recalling of the order of dismissal was filed thereafter, which again was dismissed for absence of cogent reason, vide order dt. 26.3.10 passed by Murshidabad District Forum in Case No. 60/2004, which is the subject matter of Appeal.  We fail to understand what should be the cogent reason if the illness of the Ld. Lawyer of the complainant is not the one.  It is not the case of illness of the complainant himself, but the illness of his Ld. Lawyer.  The Ld. Forum has not believed such statement on behalf of Ld. Lawyer.  Interestingly the Ops have not proved such statement to be false.  There is a presumption of truthfulness on the part of the Ld. Lawyer unless proved otherwise.  If the Forum does not believe in the statement of a Ld. Lawyer it would be difficult to accept any contention made by the Ld. Lawyer on behalf of his client.  Furthermore, the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is a benevolent legislation enacted for the purpose of protection of the rights of the Consumers.  In a situation like the present one at least one chance ought to have been given to the complainant to establish his case.

For the reasons as aforesaid we set aside the impugned order and accordingly allow the application for restoration of the complaint case by setting aside the order of dismissal of the complaint on the ground of default.  The Appeal is thus allowed.  The District Forum below is accordingly directed to dispose of the complaint case as expeditiously as possible, preferably within a period of one month from the date of communication of this order.