Order No. 4 date: 06-06-2018

Sri Shyamal Gupta, Member

Record is put up today for passing order in respect of the delay condonation petition of the Appellant.

By such petition, it is stated by the Appellant that, his Ld. Advocate obtained certified copy of the impugned order from the Ld. District Forum on 24-10-2017 and thereafter, drafted the Memo of Appeal.  As ill luck would have it, the Ld. Advocate misplaced the concerned certified copy  and after thorough searching, he located the same on 04-12-2017.  Thereafter, the Appeal was filed. It is claimed by the Appellant that the delay was wholly unintentional.

Heard both sides and perused the documents on record.

It appears from the petition under consideration that the Appellant obtained certified copy of the impugned order on 24-10-2017 notwithstanding the final order was passed on 11-09-2017.  The Appellant has not offered any explanation regarding the 43 days delay in collecting the certified copy of impugned order. 

Not only that, the Appellant, as it appears, took another 44 days to file the instant Appeal.  In this regard, the Appellant though attributed the delay to misplace of the certified copy of impugned order, it is not understood, if that was indeed the case, what prevented him/his Ld. Advocate from obtaining another certified copy from the Ld. District Forum instead of wasting precious time in allegedly searching the same at the chamber of the Ld. Advocate. 

We afraid, none of the alibis, as advanced by the Appellant to justify the delay of 57 days (excluding the statutory period of limitation) sounds convincing to us.  Therefore, we find no reason at all to allow the petition for condonation of delay.

That apart, on going through the impugned order and other relevant papers on record, we find that, the Appellant has not offered any explanation in respect of any of the grounds that prompted the Ld. District Forum to dismiss the complaint.  It is very much apparent that the Appellant miserably failed to adduce any material proof to establish his allegation of either forging of his signature or any deficiency on the part of the Respondent in the matter of clearance of the disputed cheques. In fact, while submitting the FRT, the IO concerned did not smell any culpability on the part of officials of the Bank.  He did not express any suspicion either regarding the genuineness of the signature as contained in the subject cheque.   All these facts clearly show that the complaint itself was bereft of any merit.

Consequently, the Appeal stands dismissed being barred by limitation.