M/s Daddy's Builders Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. Manisha Bhargava and Anr.
Background
A builder facing a consumer complaint filed its written statement (reply) beyond the 45-day outer limit allowed under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (30 days plus a 15-day extension). The State Consumer Commission refused to condone the delay and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission upheld that refusal. The builder approached the Supreme Court, arguing that a later Constitution Bench ruling confirming this strict 45-day cut-off should not apply to its case since its own proceedings predated that ruling, and that an earlier 2017 order had allowed fora discretion to accept late written statements.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that it was now settled by a Constitution Bench decision (New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Hilli Multipurpose Cold Storage, 2020), consistent with an earlier three-judge ruling in J.J. Merchant, that consumer fora have no power to accept a written statement beyond the strict 45-day limit, and this restated the correct legal position rather than creating a prospective-only rule for this situation. The Court clarified that the Constitution Bench's "prospective application" remark was meant only to protect delay-condonations already granted under the 2017 interim order, not to revive the builder's time-barred written statement. Since the National Commission had also examined the facts and found no justification for condoning the delay, the Supreme Court saw no reason to interfere and dismissed the special leave petition, meaning the written statement remained excluded from the consumer complaint proceedings.
Lesson Learnt
Statutory limitation periods for filing a response in consumer complaints are strict and will be enforced even in pending litigation: parties cannot rely on an interim order that permitted limited judicial discretion once a later, authoritative Constitution Bench ruling has settled that no such discretion exists.