JUDGMENT :

DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN, J.

1. I am considering these two writ petitions together because, though not involving the same parties, they impel identical issues for forensic consideration.

2. The short question involved in these cases is whether the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions (‘District Commissions’ for short) can set opposite parties ‘ex-parte’ and then proceed to dispose of the complaint in their absence, refusing them permission even to participate in the proceedings.

3. The controversy in these cases has its genesis in the fact that the opposite parties, namely the petitioners herein, did not file their counter pleadings within the statutorily stipulated time, thus forfeiting their right to do so; but the ‘District Commissions’ then went on to pass impugned orders, setting them ex-parte, so as to mean that they will not be permitted to participate in the proceedings thereafter, including to cross-examine the witnesses.

4. The petitioners assert that the impugned proceedings are illegal and unlawful because, it is beyond the statutory Scheme, for the ‘District Commissions’ to keep parties away from the proceedings, solely for the reason that they did not file