JUDGMENT :- The appellant which is a Co-operative House Building Society had filed a complaint against the respondent which was allowed by the District Forum by its judgment and order dated 7-2-1996/15-2-1996 against which the respondent filed an appeal which was dismissed by the State Commission by its judgment dated 17-10-1996. The respondent filed a revision before the National Commission which was dismissed in default on 8-12-1998. The respondent thereafter filed an application under Order IX, Rule 9 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure for recalling the order dated 8-12-1998 by which the 3590 revision was dismissed in default. This application was allowed by order dated 21-1-1999 and the order dismissing the revision in default was recalled and the revision was restored to its original number. It is against this order that the present appeal has been filed.

2. The principal contention raised by the learned counsel for the appellant is that there is no provision under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 or the rules made thereunder for restoration of a revision which is dismissed in default. Reliance for this purpose was placed on the decision of this Court in Jyotsana Arvindkumar Shah v. Bombay Hospital Trust, (1999) 4 SCC 325. Learned counsel for the respondent on the other hand has contended that the revision was dismissed on account of the mistake of the Commission itself and the Commission shall be deemed to possess the inherent power to correct its mistake in recalling the order and restoring the revision to its original number. It is contended that the act of the Court will not prejudice any party is the basic principle of the administration of justice. It is contended that in this case as the facts set out in the application would indicate that the Commission and its office had committed a mistake in not intimating the counsel, engaged by the respondent, of the date fixed for hearing of the revision and, therefore, the counsel could not appear on that date and the revision was dismissed in default. It is also stated that even in the cause list the name of the counsel was not shown.

3. In order to appreciate the contention of the parties we may set out the facts mentioned in the application for restoration as under :-

"2. That the brief facts for deciding the present application are given below :-

i) 15-10-98 : That the present case was earlier fixed on 15-10-98 before this Honble Commission for hearing and was adjourned for filing replies and rejoinder by the parties without fixing any particular date of next hearing, as per the practice of this Honble Court that the next date of hearing is always intimated to the counsel of both the parties by the Registry of this Honble Court by post.

It may be clarified here that in fact, the petitioner-Improvement Trust, Ludhiana initially engaged Ms. Indira Jaisingh, Sr. Advocate and Mr. Nikhil Nayyar as their Advocates at the time of filing of the present Review Petition No. 1359/96 but since Ms. Indira Jaisingh, Sr. Advocate had not appeared on the last date of hearing i.e. 15-10-98 and refused to appear in the present case due to other engagements, therefore, the Petitioner-Trust decided to change its Advocate in the present case and accordingly after taking no objection certification from their previous counsel, engaged a new counsel Sh. Pardeep Gupta, Advocate in the present case and vide letter dated 29-10-98 authorised Sh. Pardeep Gupta, Advocate to appear in the present case on behalf of Improvement Trust.

ii) 2-11-98 : That on 2-11-98 Sh. Pardeep Gupta, Advocate filed Power of Attorney before the Registry of this Honble National Commission on behalf of the petitioner Improvement-Trust along with his address written on the Power of Attorney and the Registry of this Honble Commission duly acknowledged/stamped the duplicate copy of the index of filing Power of Attorney. A copy of the said acknowledgement dt. 2-11-1998 given by this Honble Commission to the new Ad