ECGC Limited vs. Mokul Shriram EPC JV
Background
Mokul Shriram EPC JV, which had taken export credit insurance from ECGC Limited for a construction contract in Iraq, filed a consumer complaint after ECGC rejected its insurance claim when the Iraqi government suspended payments and later cancelled the contract. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission ("National Commission") allowed the complaint and ordered ECGC to pay about Rs. 265 crore with interest. ECGC wanted to appeal to the Supreme Court, but a dispute arose over which law's appeal conditions applied: the old Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (needing a deposit of 50% of the amount or Rs. 50,000, whichever is less) under which the complaint was originally filed, or the new Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (needing a deposit of the full 50% of the amount, with no cap) which had come into force by the time the National Commission's order was passed. ECGC deposited only Rs. 50,000 under the old law and asked the Supreme Court to confirm this was sufficient.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the right of appeal is a substantive right, not a mere procedural matter, and it vests in a litigant as of the date the dispute (the "lis") began (here, when the original complaint was filed) not the date of the final order or the date of filing the appeal. Relying on a long line of precedent including the Constitution Bench decisions in Garikapati Veeraya and Hoosein Kasam Dada, the Court held that a subsequent law cannot impose a more onerous condition on a pre-existing right of appeal unless the new law expressly says so or shows a clear intention to have retrospective effect. Since the 2019 Act's Section 107 (the repeal and savings clause) did not clearly express any intention to impose the harsher 50%-with-no-cap deposit requirement on cases that began under the 1986 Act, the Court held the older, less onerous deposit condition continued to apply to this appeal. The application was accordingly allowed, permitting ECGC's appeal to proceed on the Rs. 50,000 deposit already made.
Lesson Learnt
When a law changes the conditions for filing an appeal, the more burdensome new rule generally cannot be applied retrospectively to cases that began under the old law: a person's right to appeal, and the terms on which they can exercise it, are locked in from the moment their legal dispute started, unless the new law clearly says otherwise.