Consumer Protection Act, 2019 – Procedure on admission of complaint – Foreclosing of the right to file written statement – Effect – On facts, in a complaint, National Commission foreclosed the right of the appellant to file written statement and complainants given six weeks to file affidavit of evidence and the matter directed to be listed after five months – Challenge to: Held: Not a case where along with the notice, copy of the complaint was accompanied – Thus, it may be too harsh to foreclose anyone’s right to file written statement merely on conjectures and surmises – Case of the appellant was that the copy of the complaint was not served upon him – Commission had put onus on the appellant to have not made any attempt to get the copy of the complaint – However, the Commission merely recorded in its previous order that the notice was accepted by the counsel for the appellant in Court and was granted time to file the vakalatnama and written statement, however, it did not record that copy of the complaint was supplied by the counsel for the complainants to the counsel for the appellant – Any such observation by the Commission in its order would have clinched the issue – Impugned order passed by the Commission insofar it foreclosed the right of the appellant to file written statement set aside – Appellant permitted to file written statement on or before 14.10.2024 – Complainants allowed to file replication, if any, by 06.11.2024 and affidavit of evidence on or before 09.12.2024 – Matter to remain fixed on 09.01.2025 – Appellant to file written statement subject to payment of costs of ₹1,00,000/- each to complainants – Consumer Protection Act, 1986. [Paras 10, 11]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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