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Judgment
ORDER dated 19.1.2011 passed by Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (for short ''the State Commission '') is under challenge in these proceedings. The appeal before the State Commission was filed against the order dated 31.05.2010 passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Palakkad, Kerala in complaint case no. 103 / 2009 by which order the District Forum allowed the complaint and directed the respondent insurance company to pay a sum of Rs.3,80,000/- being the claimed amount together with compensation of Rs.30,000/- and Rs. 1,000/- as costs. Aggrieved by this order, the respondent insurance company filed an appeal which has been partly allowed by the State Commission thereby modifying the order of the District Forum and reducing the amount of compensation to Rs. 1,75,000/- with interest @9% p.a. from the date of the order of the Fora below alongwith compensation of Rs. 10,000/- and Rs. 1,000/- as costs of the proceedings. Aggrieved by the same, the original complainant has approached this Commission with the present petition.
THE petition has been filed after undue delay of 214 days alongwith an application for condonation of delay. The reason due to which the filing of the present petition was delayed are stated in para 4 and 5 of the application which we would like to extract herein below:- "4. That the copy of the Impugned Judgement was received by the Petitioner on 23.03.2011. The '' petitioner then contacted his local counsel in the month of April 2011. Since the local counsel had shifted his office the case file was misplaced and the same was traced out only in October 2011. The local counsel scrutinized the case and advised the petitioner to file revision petition before this Hon ''ble Commission. 5. The local counsel prepared the revision petition and the revision petition alongwith the connected papers were forwarded by post to the Advocate in Delhi in December. The counsel for the petitioner had been to Kerala for the winter vacation and was back only on 06.01.2012. The Advocate for petitioner also has taken few more days for getting the blurred annexures typed. Immediately thereafter the revision petition was finalized. If the delay that occurred in the above circumstances is not condoned the Petitioner will be put to irreparable loss and injury. There is no deliberate delay on the part of the petitioner in filing this revision petition. "
Learned counsel for the petitioner strongly contended that the delay in filing the present proceedings was not deliberate and due to the above noted circumstances. No affidavit of the counsel who was handed over the brief of the case and who delayed the filing of Revision has been filed alongwith the affidavit. Even otherwise, the delay is of more than seven months, in our opinion, has not been satisfactorily explained. In our opinion, there is no sufficient cause within the meaning of the term on the strength of which the petitioner can seek the favourable exercise of judicial discretion vested in this Commission in the matter of condonation of delay in filing the present proceedings. We, therefore, decline the application for condonation of delay. The appeal is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.
EVEN then, we have heard the counsel for the petitioner on the merits of the matter and he states that in the given facts and circumstances, the State Commission was riot justified in restricting the claim to the extent of Rs. 1,75,000/- as against the declared value of the subject matter of the insurance, i.e., elephant at Rs.3,80,000/- and insurer having been paid a premium on the said amount. The State Commission has taken pains in reducing the amount of compensation by holding that the complainant had purchased the elephant at a sum of Rs.2,05,000/- as per the sale deed produced on record, and a sum of Rs.30,000/- was liable to be deducted as value of tusks as per the report of the surveyor. Having considered the matter in its entirety, we are of the view that the impugned order passed by the State Commission does not suffer from any illegality, material irregularity, much less any jurisdictional error, which warrants interference of this Commission. Dismissed.
BEFORE parting with the matter we may observe that we have perused the explanation submitted by the Joint Registrar of this Commission, which in our opinion, does not clarify the position inasmuch as a deposition signed by a person does not become an ''Affidavit '' within the meaning of the Oaths Act, 1969, until the same has been verified by one of the authorities as prescribed and authorised under the Oaths Act, 1969. What we wanted to impress on the Registry in this case was that they should not accept the so-called document labelled as ''Affidavit '' in the garb of affidavit, unless the same has been verified and attested by a competent authority appointed under the Oaths Act, 1969. This will be kept in mind by the officers of the Registry, in future. Registrar may suitably advise the officers and staff members accordingly. Revision Petition dismissed.