IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) Diligent – A litigant cannot abandon responsibility once a counsel is engaged. To claim counsel negligence, the litigant must prove they were diligent and were misled.
(2) Shift the Blame – A litigant cannot merely shift the blame for delay or non-appearance onto their advocate to bypass the law of limitation.
(3) Excuses – Courts may accept a genuine explanation for long delays but should reject mere excuses.

ORDER :

A.P. Sahi, President.—These two appeals arise out of a similar nature of two separate orders passed on 20.03.2023 in CC/86/2019 and CC/87/2019, whereby the SCDRC, New Delhi dismissed the complaints for non- prosecution. Both the complaints were handled by the same learned counsel and the orders being identical, we have proceeded to hear both the matters simultaneously.

2. Learned counsel for the appellants has urged that the appearance by the counsel before the State Commission was defaulted and that the appellants were under the impression that the case is being attended to and they were not made aware of the listing of the cases on the dates fixed. The complainants have also alleged that they were not aware of the impugned orders dated 20.03.2023 and it is only when they checked the website on 18.04.2023, that they came to know of the same, whereafter they collected the papers and have preferred these appeals on 31.10.2023 and 05.01.2024, respectively.

3. Thus, the default in appearing before the State Commission as well as the delay in the filing of the present appeals have been explained in the delay condonation applications being IA/3181/2024 and IA/3183/2024, which are commonly worded. We are reproducing the contents of one of the applications as applications in both the cases are identical. The contents of IA/3183/2024 are extracted hereinunder:

“1. The present First Appeal is filed by the Appellant being aggrieved by the Final Order dated 20.03.2023 of the Hon’ble Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, New Delhi wherein the Hon’ble Commission dismissed the Complaint filed by the Appellant for default.

2. The Complaint was last listed on 20.03.2023 wherein the Hon’ble Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission had dismissed the Complaint in Default thereby holding that:

“A perusal of the record shows that the complainant has not appeared since long. Neither the complainant nor his counsel had appeared on 25.04.2022. 13.07.2022 and 25.08.2022 i.e. last date of hearing.

Even today, none has appeared on behalf of the complainant. It appears that the complainant is not interested to pursue his case.

Accordingly, the present complaint is dismissed for non-prosecution. File be consigned to the record room.”

3. It is submitted that the Complaint/ Appellant was filed in the Year 2014 and was listed on several occasions previously. The Complainant/Appellant had appeared on all previous occasions through its Counsel but after 25.04.2022, the Counsel of the Complainant / Appellant stopped appearing in the matter which was also not brought to the notice of the Complainant/ Appellant as well. The Complainant/ Appellant was not made aware of the listing of the Complaint on various dates and due to the same, this Hon’ble Court dismissed the Complaint for Non- Prosecution.

4. The Complainant/ Appellant was not aware of the passing of the Order dated 20.03.2023 and only came to know about the same when he checked the website on 18.04.2023. Thereafter, the Complainant /Appellant arranged for the complete set of papers of the Complaint / Appellant which took considerable time and the entire set of papers were made available to the Fresh Counsel only on 28.04.2023.

5. The Complainant/ Appellant was under the impression that he is being duly represented before this Hon’ble Court and presumed that fresh steps had been taken and their counsel would represent them in the hearing on 20.03.2023. But only after the passing of the Order dated 20.03.2023 vide which this Hon’ble Court had dismissed the Complaint / Appellant in Default, the Plaintiff became aware that the Complaint has been dismissed.

6. The Complainant/Appellant had to engage other counsel in order to restore the present Complaint. and thus the delay has been attributed in the present case.

7. The Complainant / Appellant states that the Non-Appearance on 20.03.2023 in the present Complainant was not intentional and was owing to the abo