Delay in appeal dismissal due to inadequate justification; the necessity of adhering to limitation laws is emphasized.

1. This appeal has been filed under section 19 of The Consumer Protection Act , 1986 in challenge to the Order dated 30.10.2017 of the State Commission in complaint no. 106 of 2016.

2. We have heard the learned counsel for the developer (the appellant herein) and the complainant in person (the respondent herein). We have also perused the material on record, including inter alia the State Commission’s impugned Order dated 30.10.2017, the application for condonation of delay in filing the appeal and the memorandum of appeal.

3. The appeal has been filed with self-admitted delay of 455 days. We see that the grounds taken in the application for condonation of delay are, one, that the developer was not aware of the Order of the State Commission as it was passed ex parte against it and it came to know of the same only when it received summons in execution proceedings, and, two, the advocate who was entrusted with the task of filing the appeal kept delaying the same.

4. Learned counsel for the developer has nothing more to add and he reiterates that as the impugned Order of the State Commission was passed ex parte against it, the developer was not aware of the same and it came to know about the Order only when summons were received in execution proceedings.

The complainant on the other hand submits that the State Commission proceeded ex parte against the developer after due service through publication and the developer was well aware of the case but purposely chose to absent itself from appearing before the State Commission.

5. We may observe that service through publication is done as a last resort and is deemed to be sufficient and effective service. We do not find any merit in the contention that despite paper publication the developer was not aware of the case.

One has to presume the existence of any fact which it thinks likely to have happened, regard being had to the common course of natural events, human conduct and public and private business, in their relation to the facts of the case. In the absence of anything to the contrary, we presume that the State Commission satisfied itself in the normal course that notice was duly served (by publication in this case) on the developer before proceeding ex parte against it.

It is also not without significance to note that no apparent difficulty in the service of the summons was confronted in the execution proceedings.

6. Though we have already observed that it is difficult to accept that the developer was not aware of the case but even then in all eventualities the developer was necessarily aware of the case on 05.03.2018 when an advocate had appeared on its behalf in the execution proceedings before the State Commission. Yet still from 05.03.2018 to 01.02.2019 i.e. for 333 days it did not file the appeal when the statutory period prescribed under section 19 of The Consumer Protection Act , 1986 is 30 days. This self-admitted and established delay of 303 days beyond the prescribed period even is in itself palpably abnormal and necessarily requires justified sufficient cause for condonation.

7. Learned counsel for the developer has tried to fall back on the argument that the advocate who was given the task of filing the appeal kept on delaying the same and the said delay owes to nothing else than counsel’s inaction.

In this regard the complainant however draws specific attention to sub-para ‘j’ and sub-para ‘m’ of para 4 of the application for condonation of delay, which are being reproduced below for reference:

j. That on or about 10.01.19 the appellant got sick and could not contact the said L