Som Nath Bhatt vs Central Provident Fund Commissioner & Anr.

This revision petition has been filed by the petitioner challenging the order dated 29th January 2019 passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission Delhi, (in short 'the State Commission') in first appeal No. 509 of 2018.

The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner complainant filed a consumer complaint before the District Forum alleging that there was no clarity in respect of the contributions in the EPF of the complainant from the employer and there was delay of about 2 years in giving payments to him. The opposite parties contested the case by filing the replies and it was stated that when the complainant first submitted his application, his signatures did not match with the signature in the office of the employer, hence the application could not be attested by the employer. The complainant submitted fresh application however, this time also, the attestation was not there and one officer was deputed to get the form attested by the employer. In this process; the completed form reached the OP only on 13th June 2013 and the order was passed on 19th September 2013. Thus, the papers remained with the opposite party only for about 3 months. Pleading no deficiency in service, it was requested to dismiss the complaint.

The District Forum vide its order dated 17th May 2018 dismissed the complaint.

The complainant then preferred appeal before the State Commission being FA No. 509 of 2018. The State Commission vide its order dated 29th January 2019 dismissed the appeal.

Hence, the present revision petition.

Heard the petitioner in person at the admission stage. The petitioner has stated that The State Commission has not appreciated the fact that due to the delay, the complainant has suffered huge loss. Even if the delay is justified, the complainant is entitled to get compensation for this delay. There is no provision that the signatures will be attested by the employer. The employer has to attest the contribution made by the employer. The employer has denied the attestation for the first application form and unnecessarily the complainant had to file another application form. The State Commission has not decided the appeal on merits, rather, the State Commission has given much importance to the orders of the other courts.

I have carefully considered the arguments advanced by the petitioner and I have examined the record. In fact, the State Commission has observed the following:-

"9. The explanation given by the respondents that initially signatures of the form were not attested by the employer, secondly the same were reported to be different. So claimant filed fresh application on 13.06/13. So the period taken by the respondents remain three months only from 13.06.13 to 19.09.13. That cannot be called unreasonably long period. No deficiency can be imputed to the respondent.

I asked the appellant to file copy of order passed by Hon'ble Single Judge of Delhi High Court referred by the District Forum in impugned order. He filed copy of order dated 01.07.08 passed by Presiding Officer, Labour Court, copy of order dated 04.07.13 passed by Hon'ble Single Judge in WPC and copy of order dated 06.07.17 passed by Hon'ble Division Bench in LPA no.734/13. All the three orders concurrently went against the appellant. This shows that the appellant is fond of keeping the litigation. On."

From the above observation of the State Commission it is clear that the delay has happened mainly due to negligence of the complainant himself as his signature did not match the signature with the employer and also with the second application form, the attestation was not ensured. The delay has happened in getting these formalities completed. Moreover, the delay has been only of about 3 months and therefore the State Commission has observed that no deficiency can be imputed on the opposite parties. In fact, one of the reasons for dismissal of the complaint by the District Forum was that the complainant had already availed the remedy of civil writ petition before the Hon'ble Delhi High Court and therefore the complaint before the District Forum was not maintainable. There seems to be no legal flaw in this observation of the District Forum. The State Commission has also recorded that the orders of the other courts have also gone against the petitioner complainant. In a way, both the fora below have given concurrent finding of facts and the facts cannot be reassessed at the stage of the revision petition and the scope under the revision petition is quite limited against the concurrent finding of the fora below as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Lourdes Society Snehanjali Girls Hostel and Ors. Vs. H&R Johnson (India) Ltd. and others, (2016) 8 Supreme Court Cases 286 wherein following has been observed:-

"23. The National Commission has to exercise the jurisdiction vested in it only if the State Commission or the District Forum has either failed to exercise their jurisdiction or exercised when the same was not vested in them or exceeded their jurisdiction by acting illegally or with material irregularity. In the instant case, the National Commission has certainly exceeded its jurisdiction by setting aside the concurrent finding of fact recorded in the order passed by the State Commission which is based upon valid and cogent reasons."

In the circumstances of the present case, I agree with the analysis of the State Commission in respect of the delay and I agree with the conclusion reached by the State Commission.

Based on the above discussion, I do not find any illegality, material irregularity or jurisdictional error in the order dated 29th January 2019 which calls for any interference from this Commission. Accordingly, the revision petition No. 723 of 2019 is dismissed at the admission stage.