ORIENTAL INSURANCE CO. LTD. Vs. SOMNATH TRADING CO.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal under Sec. 19 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short 'the Act') assails the order dtd. 19/1/2018 of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Gujarat (for short 'the State Commission') in Complaint No.94 of 2015.

(2.) There is a delay of 103 days in filing of the present Appeal. IA 11242 of 2018 has been filed by the Appellant seeking condonation of delay stating that the certified copy of the impugned order dtd. 19/1/2018 was received by the Appellant, admittedly, on 24/1/2018. The Appeal, however, has been filed on 7/6/2018 and the delay is sought to be explained on the ground that the file was forwarded to the Head Office on 23/2/2018 and it took time to translate the documents since there was a shortage of Translators and that the relevant translation could not sent only on 23/3/2018 to the Head Office. Thereafter, it took time for the Head Office to seek information from empanelled Advocate to respond to queries raised and to locate lawyer before the State Commission in view of the courts being on vacation. The delay of 103 days is sought to be justified on the basis of the judgment of . It is broadly argued that a very technical view of the facts need not be taken in refusing to condone the delay in view of the fact that the Appellant represents a Public Sector entity dealing with insurance since the delay was not intentional or deliberate.

(3.) This application for condonation of delay was strongly opposed by the learned Counsel for the Respondent on the ground that the delay had not been sufficiently explained and that the internal processes of the Appellant could not be accepted as the basis for condonation of delay. It was argued that the Hon'ble Supreme Court in several landmark judgments has emphasized that the delay of each day needs to be sufficiently explained in order to justify the case for condonation of delay. It was also contended that the argument that the delay was caused because translation of documents from the vernacular to English took time, was not justifiable since no documents had been brought on record which was in vernacular along with the translated copies. It was, therefore, submitted that the delay of 103 days did not warrant to be condoned.