After 8 years, plaint nixed for year’s delay

AHMEDABAD: It’s like the pot calling the kettle black! A consumer forum took eight years to tell a litigant that she was late by a year in filing a complaint about the loss of vision in her left eye, caused by the implantation of defective lens during a cataract surgery.

The Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum in Surat rejected the complaint in 2011. It had sat on it since 2003. This delay was highlighted by the Gujarat State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission, which reversed the forum’s order. But it took another seven years for the commission to rectify the error.

So the complainant had to wait for 15 years to get justice in the form of compensation of Rs 1.20 lakh.


The case involved Jyotiben Popawala from Surat, who underwent a cataract surgery in her left eye in February 2001. Due to the implantation of defective intraocular lens, she slowly started losing vision in the left eye. A doctor issued her a certificate to this effect in Febraury 2002, and she filed a complaint under the Consumer Protection Act with the Surat district forum in December 2003. The complaint was rejected.

On June 15, 2018, the commission admitted Popawala’s complaint and said that the forum had an option to pardon the delay in filing the complaint, which it did not exercise.

The commission observed, “If it is time barred, then it may be condoned or not?” The commission went on to say: “This case was filed in 2003 before the district forum, but after eight years, the district forum dismissed the complaint on the basis of time bar. Moreover, if any complaint filed is beyond the time limit, the district forum becomes functus officio (an agency whose mandate has expired) and cannot look into the merits of the case.” But, the commission said, in this case the forum decided to do so which was against the well-established principle of law.

The commission directed distributors of the lens to pay Rs 45,000 to the woman for her surgery and doctor’s consultancy, Rs 25,000 for legal expenditure, and Rs 50,000 for causing mental agony. They were held responsible for unfair trade practice because they knew the lens was defective, but still supplied it.