A Single Member Bench (Saroj Yadav, Presiding Member) of the NCDRC has allowed HDFC Bank's revision petition and held that its written statement, filed after the complaint copy was received on 24 September 2025, fell within the maximum permissible 45-day period — 30 days extendable by a further 15 for sufficient cause — under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The Commission set aside the State Commission's order that had refused to condone delay and struck the written statement off the record, confirming that the 45-day outer limit is to be treated as an absolute, sacrosanct ceiling under the Act rather than a target State Commissions can shorten through their own strict internal practice.
The ruling gives respondents in consumer proceedings — including banks and other regulated entities frequently on the receiving end of consumer complaints — a clear, enforceable procedural safeguard: so long as the written statement is filed within the full 45-day window the Act allows, it cannot be struck off for being filed 'too close' to the deadline.