Revisional Jurisdiction Of NCDRC Extremely Limited, Reiterates Supreme Court
Case: Sunil Kumar Maity Vs State Bank Of India
Coram: Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M. Trivedi
Case No.: CA 432 OF 2022
Court Observation: “This court is at a loss to understand as to how the National Commission could have sought for a report at the revisional stage, that too from an officer of the party which already had an opportunity to submit all the documents necessary for the purpose of defending itself before the Consumer Forum, and as to how such a report in the form of an additional 6 evidence produced at the revisional stage could be relied upon, in respect of which the two fora below had no opportunity to deal with. It is needless to say that the revisional jurisdiction of the National Commission under Section 21(b) of the said Act is extremely limited. It should be exercised only in case as contemplated within the parameters specified in the said provision, namely when it appears to the National Commission that the State Commission had exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or had failed to exercise jurisdiction so vested, or had acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. In the instant case, the National Commission itself had exceeded its revisional jurisdiction by calling for the report from the respondent-bank and solely relying upon such report, had come to the conclusion that the two fora below had erred in not undertaking the requisite in-depth appraisal of the case that was required.”
“The party has to establish that notwithstanding the exercise of due diligence, such evidence was not within its knowledge or could not even after due diligence, be produced by it at the time when the decree appealed against was passed. Apart from the fact that there is a vast difference between the exercise of appellate jurisdiction and the revisional jurisdiction, no such application was filed by the respondent-bank before the National Commission. Under the circumstances, calling for the report by the National Commission on its own from the officer of the bank was absolutely unwarranted. Further, it is also well settled legal position that requirement of leading detailed evidence could not be a ground to shut the doors of any forum created under the Act like the Consumer Protection Act. The anvil on which entertainability of a complaint by a forum under the Act is to be determined, is whether the questions, though complicated they may be, are capable of being determined by summary enquiry.”
“Such an observation/order passed by the National Commission is in utter ignorance of the provisions of the Limitation Act, in as much as Section 5 of the Limitation Act does not apply to the institution of civil suit in the Civil Court.”
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