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Judgment
THE delay in filing the appeal is here by condoned. On going through the records, we find that the impugned order of the State Commission has been passed by the President of the State Commission sitting singly. Even under the provisions of Section 14 of the Consumer Protection Act as amended recently, it is made mandatory that every case before a State Commission should be disposed of by the President sitting along with at least one other Member. Inasmuch as this provision has been clearly violated while passing the order impugned before us, the Order must be held to be null and void. We accordingly set aside the order passed by the State Commission.
ORDINARILY, we should have remanded the case to the State Commission for fresh disposal on the merits in accordance with law since the State Commission has not even passed a speaking order while granting relief to the complainant. No evidence was adduced before the State Commission by the complainant and the Commission had before it only a Complaint Petition. We have gone through the records. Before us, the respondent company has filed a written submission in which the Company has offered to supply and deliver to the complainant a T. V. set of the same model as the one which was sold to him or alternatively to get the allegedly defective T.V. set already sold to the complainant properly repaired through one of their authorised repairing agents. We consider that the aforesaid offer is absolutely fair and that it would go to fully remedy the grievance, if any, that the complainant may have. In our opinion, instead of repairing the previous set which is alleged to be defective, the better course would be to supply to the complainant a new T.V. set of the same model which is one of the alternatives offered by the respondent company. We direct that such a new T.V. set of the same model as the one originally sold to the complainant shall be supplied to the complainant within a period of one month on the complainant returning the original set to the company through the authorized dealer. The appeal and the Complaint Petition are disposed of with this direction. No costs. Appeal disposed of.