IMPORTANT POINT
Entertainment of belated appeals and revisions in consumer matters defeats very object of expeditious adjudication of consumer disputes.

D.K. Jain, President—By this Revision Petition, under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short “the Act”), M/s Hyundai Motor India Limited and its Managing Director and Manager, Opposite Parties No. 1, 2 and 3 in the Complaint under the Act, call in question the correctness and legality of the orders dated 25.03.2014 and 21.10.2015, passed by the Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Thiruvananthapuram (for short “the State Commission”) in Appeal No. 603/2012 and Restoration Application No. 4/2015 respectively. While by the first impugned order, the State Commission has dismissed the Appeal, preferred by the Petitioners herein, in default, by the second one it has dismissed their Restoration Application, as, despite its direction, they had not taken any steps for issue of notice to the Respondents.

2. The effect of the orders impugned in the Revision Petition is that the order dated 30.04.2012, passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum at Ernakulam (for short “the District Forum”) in Complaint Case No. 338 of 2010, preferred by Respondent No.1, the Complainant, has attained finality. By the said order, the District Forum had partly allowed the Complaint, directing the Petitioners herein to jointly and severally replace the car of the Complainant with a new one, with liberty to them to get back the car in question, lying with their Dealer, Opposite Parties No.4 and 5.

3. The circumstances, necessitating filing of the Complaint are as under:

3.1 Lured by various assurances/amenities and hassle-free services of the Opposite Parties, on 25.04.2007 the Complainant purchased a brand new Santro XL Car, manufactured by the Petitioners, through their Authorized Dealer against sale consideration of Rs.3,54,813/-. For the said purpose, the Complainant had also availed financial assistance from HDFC Bank. Within one week of its delivery, the car started giving problems, on account of which it was taken to the Authorized Service Station and after repairs, it was delivered back after five days. On 10.04.2009, while the Complainant was driving the car, a blast took place in the vehicle, on account of which he as well as a co-passenger, one of his friends, sustained serious injuries and the vehicle was also destroyed. Besides the medical expenses of Rs.50,000/- incurred by the Complainant on his treatment, as the said incident had occurred on the eve of Prime Minister’s visit at Kochi, the Police also suspected some wrong doing on the part of the Complainant, resulting in great difficulty and hardship to him. Pursuant to the Complainant’s email dated 27.04.2009 in the matter, Petitioners representatives inspected the vehicle and assured the Complainant that it would be replaced with a new one. However, despite repeated requests from the Complainant, the vehicle in question was not replaced. In the said background, alleging that the vehicle had inherent manufacturing defects, the afore-noted Complaint came to be filed before the District Forum, wherein the Complainant had prayed for certain reliefs, mentioned in the Complaint.

4. Having suffered the adverse orders by the District Forum and the State Commission, though at the Appellate stage in default, the Petitioners are before me in the present Revision Petition.

5. It is pointed out by the office that the Revision Petition is barred by limitation, inasmuch as there is a delay of 1025 days in filing the same. An Application, seeking condonation of the delay, has also been filed with the Revision Petition. In paragraphs 2 – 7 thereof, the Petitioners have furnished the following explanation:

“2. That Certified Copy of the impugned order passed by the Ld. District Forum (it should be the State Commission) dated 21.10.2015 was not received by the Applicants from the Court after the passing of the aforesaid order neither the same was informed by the Counsel who was handling the matter for the Applicants before the Hon’ble State Commiss