On 30 November 2022, the Punjab and Haryana High Court comprising of Single Bench of Justice Deepak Gupta in the case tittle Rohitash Yadav b. State of Haryana sets asides the order of the learned lower Court in Revision Petition and held that the appeals are filed with impunity by the Government with huge delays and delay is sought to be condoned by assuming as if there is no statute like Limitation Act or under the assumption that application for whatever delay, will be condoned by the Court.
Rarely any action is taken against erring officials/public servants for their inaction of not taking the decision well within time resulting in huge delays. This practice must be put to stop.
FACTS OF THE CASE
The suit for grant of decree of mandatory & perpetual injunction was decreed by learned Trial Court. The order was held to be illegal. Injunction was granted restraining the defendants/respondent from making any deduction from the salary of the plaintiff fixed by the Civil Surgeon. Against the above said judgment/decree, defendants filed an appeal on 16.12.2017 along with an application to condone the huge delay of 1066 days. That application has been allowed by learned Additional District Judge, Narnaul. Hence the Present Revision Petition.
PETITIONER CONTENTIONS
Petitioner contends that there was no justification to condone the delay. In a similar matter titled as K.K. Yadav Vs. State of Haryana, the department went upto Hon’ble Supreme Court of India without any delay. Hon'ble Supreme Court ruled against the department in the similar circumstances and therefore, the appeal filed by the defendants with a huge delay of 1066 days, is nothing but a measure to harass the petitioner.
COURT OBSERVATION
Court in its observation places a reliance upon the Defendant contentions before the Learned Lower Court:
For the plea for condonation of delay, it was pleaded by the “defendants that Assistant District Attorney Narnaul had opined that the judgement of the trial Court was fit to file appeal. File was sent for recommendation to the Legal Remembrancer to the Government of Haryana, who agreed with the opinion of the District Attorney and directed the appellants to file the appeal. The letter was marked by appellant No.4 to the concerned official namely Vijay Singh Assistant, who did not prepare the necessary papers regarding filing of the appeal with the help of the District Attorney Narnaul and rather, he lost the file. The matter was later on brought to the notice of appellant No.4 by the accountant and all this caused the delay of 1066 days in filing the appeal, which was not intentional.”
Further the Court observes the Ld. Lower Court Observation
The, Ld. ADJ has relied on State of Nagaland Vs. Lipok Ao 2005 (2) CCC 422, wherein it was observed by Hon’ble Supreme Court that the court should always take a justice oriented approach while considering an application for condonation of delay. If the court is convinced that there had been an attempt on the part of government officials or public servants to defeat justice by causing delay, the court in view of the large public interest, should take a lenient view in such situations and condone the delay, howsoever huge may be the delay; and to decide the matter on merits.
The Court in its observation reiterates that, appellants have been grossly negligent in filing the appeal before first appellate court, as inaction on their part for long time has resulted into delay of three years. whereas, the reasons given for condonation of delay by the appellants were not at all justified. Simply by stating that file moved from one office to another for seeking opinion and then was lost by one of the official, the appellants (respondents herein) cannot be allowed to file an appeal with delay of more than 03 years, without bringing on record any fact as to the action taken against the erring officers/officials.
It is noticed by this Court that in large number of cases, the Government seeks to condone the delay on the similar grounds. Despite repeated directions given by this Court as well as by the Hon'ble Apex Court in plethora of authorities, there appears to be no change in the attitude of the State Government.
The appeals are filed with impunity by the Government with huge delays and delay is sought to be condoned by assuming as if there is no statute like Limitation Act or under the assumption that application for whatever delay, will be condoned by the Court. Rarely any action is taken against erring officials/public servants for their inaction of not taking the decision well within time resulting in huge delays. This practice must be put to stop.
The Court sets asides the order of ld. Lower Court and accepts the Revision accordingly.
Court: Punjab and Haryana High Court
Case title: Rohitash Yadav b. State of Haryana
Case No: CR-7696-2019
Coram: Deepak Gupta
Decided on: 30.11.2022
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