Present Revision Petition has been filed by the Petitioners/ Opposite Parties against the impugned order dated 31.07.2015, passed by Uttar Pradesh State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Lucknow (for short, ‘State Commission’) in First Appeal No.744 of 2017. 2. Brief facts of the case are that Respondent/Complainant had registered with the Petitioners/Opposite Parties for allotment of a house. The Petitioners allotted Flat No.E-1/439, Viram Khand, Gomti Nagar Scheme, but the Respondent did not receive allotment letter for many days. She continuously demanded the allotment letter but to no avail. Finally, Petitioners directed the Respondent to deposit a sum of Rs.70,000/-in lump-sum and other charges of Rs.1691/- for Registry of Flat and the Respondent deposited the entire amount in 2006 itself. It was alleged that the Petitioners adopting unfair trade practice and in connivance delivered the allotment letter of the said Flat No. E-1/439 in the name of some other woman of same name as that of the Respondent and got money deposited by her also. The Respondent as per the directions of the Petitioners, had deposited the entire amount in the year 2006 itself for registry of the said flat and as per their directions after purchasing stamp paper for registry and getting Agreement to Sell typed out visited them for Registry whereupon the Petitioners did not execute Registry of Respondent and asked her to wait for some time for Registry. It was further alleged that the Respondent kept on making continuous efforts with the Petitioners for Registry of her flat but they did not take any action for the same which caused the Respondent severe mental and physical torture as also physical loss. Hence, Respondent filed a consumer Complaint before the District Forum, Lucknow-II seeking relief that the Petitioners be directed for Registry of the flat in question in favour of the Respondent and award Rs.3,50,000/- for mental and physical agony and paid and financial losses together with cost of the case Rs.5,000/-. 3. Petitioners in their written statement stated that Respondent had deposited Rs.100/- for the Registration of one plot of land in Chowk area in which her father’s name was mentioned as Rehmat Ali and permanent address as Johri Mohalla 308/56, Chowk, Lucknow. However, no flat was allotted in the name of the Respondent and nor had any demand been letter issued and the flat in question as per department records stands allotted in the name of Smt. Suraiya Bano W/o Abdul Shamim R/o 400/25, Mohalla Qutubpur, Lucknow and after depositing of money, the agreement having been executed on 11.10.1991 and possession letter was also issued. The auction for registry in favour of Smt. Suraiya Bano W/o Abdul Shamim was being taken when the complaint was received on 23.05.2007, in which it was alleged that Smt. Suraiya Bano had died. Some agents in connivance with authority wanted to grab the house by posing some other woman as Suraiya Bano. After the aforesaid information, the action for Registry was deferred and letters were issued to both Smt. Suraiya Bano for submitting proof of parentage but none of the parties submitted proof of allotment and parentage. Consequent to depositing Rs.100/-, the Registration amount on 17.03.1983, the Respondent did not come under the category of consumer. No allotment letter for the flat in question was issued in favour of the Respondent and the representation of the Respondent was also rejected by the Department and the Petitioners have not committed any deficiency in service and complaint of the Respondent is time barred. 4. The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Lucknow-II (for short, ‘District Forum’) vide its order dated 14.03.2014 allowed the complaint of the Respondent and directed the Petitioners to execute and registered sale deed of flat in question No.E-1/439 E.W.S. Vikram Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow and hand over its physical possession within two months from the date of judgement after obtaining stamps paper. In addition to this, the Petitioners were directed severally and jointly to pay Rs.10,000/- for mental agony of the Respondent and Rs.2,000/- as cost of case and in case the Petitioners severally and jointly failed to pay the aforesaid amount to the Respondent within the time limit prescribed as above, then they shall pay the amount with 12% interest per annum on the entire above mentioned amount from the said date till the payment. 5. Aggrieved by the order of the District Forum, the Petitioners filed an appeal before the State Commission. The State Commission vide their order dated 31.07.2015, while dismissing the Appeal filed by the Petitioners observed as under; “It is clear from perusal of entire facts and circumstances of the case that the appellants by not making allotment and registration of flat in question in favour of complainant/respondent have committed deficiency in service. The judgment given in this regard cannot be said to be erroneous. In view of facts and circumstances of the case, Rs.10,000/- allowed as compensation for mental agony suffered by the complaint/respondent and Rs.2,000/- allowed as cost of case also appear to be reasonable. Accordingly, appeal has no force. Appeal is liable to be dismissed. O R D E R Appeal is dismissed.” 6. Hence, the present Revision Petition. 7. Along with this Revision Petition, the Petitioners have filed an application seeking condonation of delay of 342 days. The reasons given for condoning the delay in the application are given as under:- “That the panel lawyer of the petitioner authority informed the petitioner authority about the passing of impugned order in the aforesaid case of which the petitioners were aggrieved. Thereafter the case file moved from one officer to other for approval and contesting the case before higher commission and the legal advice was sought for filing the revision petition before the Hon’ble National Commission against the order of Hon’ble State Commission in the month of February 2016 the petitioner authority send the dealing assistant to their counsel at New Delhi for filing the revision in the month of March, 2016 along with record of Fora below. The counsel checked the documents and pointed out to the dealing assistant some important documents like pleading and evidence of subordinate Fora below were not there and asked him to send the same. The Petitioners send the required documents to the counsel in the month of April, 2016 by post but evidence of parties was not there. The petitioner wrote several letters to the Petitioner in April, 2016, on 25.05.2016 and July, 2016 but the evidence of respondent was not available with them. The petitioner tried to produce the said document but only able to get that in the first week of September, 2016. Some documents were in Hindi vernacular language, the4refoer, those documents were got translated by the translator and the revision petition was prepared and drafted and other relevant documents typed along with the revision petition. Thereafter fresh affidavit of concerned person was got sworn and fresh vakalatnama was obtained at the office of counsel at New Delhi. The counsel prepared the revision and filed in the 1st week of October, 2016.” 8. We have heard the learned counsel for the Parties. The learned counsel for the Petitioners stated that the delay occurred on account of bureaucratic set up as also the approval to be taken for filing the Revision Petition at various levels. He said it was unintentional and grave harm would be caused to the Petitioner if the delay is not condoned 9. The Counsel for the Respondent however, stated that explanation given in the application for condonation of delay is extremely vague and no specific reason has been given to condone the inordinate delay of 342 days. He further contended that the State Commission had passed the impugned order on a correct appreciation of the facts. 9. I have carefully perused the contents of the application for condonation of delay. It is extremely vague. The Petitioners have not even mentioned the date of receiving of the certified copy of the impugned order and the date on which the panel lawyer of the Petitioners—Authority informed the Petitioner about passing of the impugned order. The application for condonation of delay does not mention the name of the officers to whom the case file was referred for approval and how much time had taken at each stage. Moreover, in the application, no specific dates have been given to explain the day to day delay of 342 days. 9. It is well settled that “sufficient cause” for condoning the delay in each case is a question of fact. 10. Hon’ble Supreme Court in “Anshul Aggarwal vs. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, IV (2011) CPJ 63 (SC)” has laid down 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.” 11. Further, Hon’ble Supreme Court in Post Master General and others vs. Living Media India Ltd. and another (2012) 3 Supreme Court Cases 563 has held; “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 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. 31. In view of our conclusion on Issue (a), there is no need to go into the merits of Issues (b) and (c). The question of law raised is left open to be decided in an appropriate case. 32. In the light of the above discussion, the appeals fail and are dismissed on the ground of delay. No order as to costs”. 12. Observations made by the Apex Court in the authoritative pronouncements discussed above are fully attracted to the facts and circumstances of the case. 13. Accordingly, no sufficient ground is made out for condoning the inordinate delay of 342 days in filing of the present Revision Petition. The application for condonation of delay under these circumstances is rejected. Consequently, the present Revision Petition being barred by limitation is hereby dismissed. 14. No order as to cost. | 
