Bharat Singh (Deceased) Thr Lrs & ... vs Union Of India & Ors
2016 Latest Caselaw 3604 Del

$~11
*      IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+                         LA APP.537/2015
                                         Date of Decision: 16.05.2016
       BHARAT SINGH (DECEASED)
       THR LRS & ORS                      ..... Appellants
                     Through: Mr.Inder Singh, Advocate.

                          versus

       UNION OF INDIA & ORS                         ..... Respondents
                     Through:          Ms. Jyoti Tyagi, Adv. for
                                       The Respondent No.1/UOI.
                                       Mr. Karan Sharma, Advocate
                                       for the Respondent No.2/DDA.

CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ASHUTOSH KUMAR

ASHUTOSH KUMAR, J. (ORAL)

CM Appln. No.32659/2015

1. The application is for condonation of delay of 694 days in filing the appeal.

2. Ms. Jyoti Tyagi. Learned Advocate, opposes the prayer of the appellants/applicants for condoning the delay in preferring the appeal.

3. It is submitted on behalf of the appellants/applicants that after the judgment was pronounced by the Reference Court, the appellants/applicants contacted their counsel for filing execution petition. They were of the impression that after the compensation amount given by the Reference Court is made available to them

through the executing Court then only appeal could be filed for enhancement of compensation. It is further submitted that the appellants/applicants received refund voucher in October, 2014 which was encashed later in the month of November, 2014. It was only thereafter that the appellants/applicants thought of preferring an appeal for enhancement. By that time they had also learnt that other land owners of the village in question had preferred the appeals for the enhancement of the compensation amount. This actually led to the delay of 694 days in preferring the appeal.

4. The law of limitation, is based on the legal maxim "Interest Reipubulicae Ut Sit Finis Litium" which means that it is for the general welfare that a period be put to litigation. If legal remedy is kept alive beyond the legislatively fixed period of time, it only generates dissatisfaction. The parties cannot be allowed to have an unbridled and unfettered free play in matters of timing of approaching the Court. The Courts, the Supreme Court asserted, must keep in mind while dealing with the limitation petition that there is a distinction between the delay for a plausible reason and delay because of inaction or negligence which deprives a party of the protection of Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

5. Without disputing the aforesaid well established principles regarding the law of limitation, there is another aspect, equally important, which cannot be lost sight of. The Supreme Court has, on number of occasions opined that the expression "sufficient cause" ought to be interpreted in a manner which subserves the cause of justice for which the institutions of justicing stand for. When a case

with arguable points is shut out on prescriptions of limitation, it results in throwing out a good case at the threshold with the only necessary implication of injustice being perpetuated and justice being defeated. The expression "sufficient cause" cannot be interpreted in an iron frame. The expression "sufficient cause", in the words of the Supreme Court, is sufficiently elastic for the purposes of a meaningful interpretation. A serious note of caution has been sounded by Supreme Court against any pedantic or hyper technical approach in dealing with limitation petitions, more so, when stakes are high and there is availability of arguable points of law.

6. A Court cannot turn away its sight from the fact that no litigant benefits by approaching the Court late. Without any good reason, nobody would like to have his claim extinguished and more often than not, any good reason would dovetail into sufficient reason for approaching the Court after the period of limitation.

7. In Ramlal vs. Rewa Coalfields Ltd., AIR 1962 SC 361, the Supreme Court, while interpreting Section 5 of the Limitation Act, laid down the following proposition:

"In construing Section 5 (of the Limitation Act), it is relevant to bear in mind two important considerations. The first consideration is that the expiration of the period of limitation prescribed for making an appeal gives rise to a right in favour of the decree-holder to treat the decree as binding between the parties. In other words, when the period of limitation prescribed has expired, the decree-holder has obtained a benefit under the law of limitation to treat the decree as beyond challenge, and this legal right which has accrued

to the decree- holder by lapse of time should not be light-heartedly disturbed. The other consideration which cannot be ignored is that if sufficient cause for excusing delay is shown, discretion is given to the court to condone delay and admit the appeal. This discretion has been deliberately conferred on the court in order that judicial power and discretion in that behalf should be exercised to advance substantial justice.

8. In Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag v. Mst. Katiji, (1987) SCC 107, the Supreme Court made a significant departure from the earlier judgments and observed:

"The legislature has conferred the power to condone delay by enacting Section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act of 1963 in order to enable the courts to do substantial justice to parties by disposing of matters on "merits". The expression "sufficient cause" employed by the legislature is adequately elastic to enable the courts to apply the law in a meaningful manner which subserves the ends of justice-that being the life-purpose for the existence of the institution of courts. It is common knowledge that this Court has been making a justifiably liberal approach in matters instituted in this Court. But the message does not appear to have percolated down to all the other courts in the hierarchy. And such a liberal approach is adopted on principle as it is realized that:

1. Ordinarily a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late.

2. Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out at the very threshold and cause of justice being defeated. As against this when delay is condoned the highest

that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties.

3. "Every day's delay must be explained" does not mean that a pedantic approach should be made. Why not every hour's delay, every second's delay? The doctrine must be applied in a rational common sense pragmatic manner.

4. When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred for the other side cannot claim to have vested right in injustice being done because of a non-deliberate delay.

5. There is no presumption that delay is occasioned deliberately, or on account of culpable negligence, or on account of mala fides. A litigant does not stand to benefit by resorting to delay. In fact he runs a serious risk.

6. It must be grasped that judiciary is respected not on account of its power to legalize injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so. Making a justice-oriented approach from this perspective, there was sufficient cause for condoning the delay in the institution of the appeal. The fact that it was the "State" which was seeking condonation and not a private party was altogether irrelevant. The doctrine of equality before law demands that all litigants, including the State as a litigant, are accorded the same treatment and the law is administered in an even- handed manner. There is no warrant for according a step-motherly treatment when the "State" is the applicant praying for condonation of delay. In fact experience shows that on account of an impersonal machinery (no one in charge of the matter is directly hit or hurt by the judgment sought to be subjected to appeal) and the inherited

bureaucratic methodology imbued with the note- making, file-pushing and passing-on-the-buck ethos, delay on its part is less difficult to understand though more difficult to approve. In any event, the State which represents the collective cause of the community, does not deserve a litigant-non-grata status. The courts therefore have to be informed with the spirit and philosophy of the provision in the course of the interpretation of the expression "sufficient cause". So also the same approach has to be evidenced in its application to matters at hand with the end in view to do even- handed justice on merits in preference to the approach which scuttles a decision on merits."

9. In N. Balakrishnan v. M. Krishnamurthy, (1998) 7 SCC 123, the Supreme Court expanded the scope and ambit of law of limitation and elucidated as follows:

"It is axiomatic that condonation of delay is a matter of discretion of the court. Section 5 of the Limitation Act does not say that such discretion can be exercised only if the delay is within a certain limit. Length of delay is no matter, acceptability of the explanation is the only criterion. Sometimes delay of the shortest range may be uncondonable due to a want of acceptable explanation whereas in certain other cases, delay of a very long range can be condoned as the explanation thereof is satisfactory. Once the court accepts the explanation as sufficient, it is the result of positive exercise of discretion and normally the superior court should not disturb such finding, much less in revisional jurisdiction, unless the exercise of discretion was on wholly untenable grounds or arbitrary or perverse. But it is a

different matter when the first court refuses to condone the delay. In such cases, the superior court would be free to consider the cause shown for the delay afresh and it is open to such superior court to come to its own finding even untrammelled by the conclusion of the lower court.

Rules of limitation are not meant to destroy the rights of parties. They are meant to see that parties do not resort to dilatory tactics, but seek their remedy promptly. The object of providing a legal remedy is to repair the damage caused by reason of legal injury. The law of limitation fixes a lifespan for such legal remedy for the redress of the legal injury so suffered. Time is precious and wasted time would never revisit. During the efflux of time, newer causes would sprout up necessitating newer persons to seek legal remedy by approaching the courts. So a lifespan must be fixed for each remedy. Unending period for launching the remedy may lead to unending uncertainty and consequential anarchy. The law of limitation is thus founded on public policy. It is enshrined in the maxim interest reipublicae up sit finis litium (it is for the general welfare that a period be put to litigation). Rules of limitation are not meant to destroy the rights of the parties. They are meant to see that parties do not resort to dilatory tactics but seek their remedy promptly. The idea is that every legal remedy must be kept alive for a legislatively fixed period of time.

It must be remembered that in every case of delay, there can be some lapse on the part of the litigant concerned. That alone is not enough to turn down his plea and to shut the door against him. If the explanation does not smack of mala fides or it is not put forth as part of a dilatory strategy, the court must show utmost consideration to the suitor. But when there is reasonable ground

to think that the delay was occasioned by the party deliberately to gain time, then the court should lean against acceptance of the explanation. While condoning the delay, the court should not forget the opposite party altogether. It must be borne in mind that he is a loser and he too would have incurred quite large litigation expenses. It would be a salutary guideline that when courts condone the delay due to laches on the part of the applicant, the court shall compensate the opposite party for his loss.

10. In P.K. Ramachandran v. State of Kerala, (1997) 7 SCC 556, the Supreme Court while reversing the order passed by High Court which had condoned 565 days delay in filing an appeal by the State against the decree of the Sub- Court in an arbitration application, observed that the law of limitation may harshly affect a particular party but it has to be applied with all its rigour when the statute so prescribes and the Courts have no power to extend the period of limitation on equitable grounds. In Vedabai v. Shantaram Baburao Patil, (2001) 9 SCC 106, the Court observed that a distinction must be made between a case where the delay is inordinate and a case where the delay is of few days and whereas in the former case the consideration of prejudice to the other side will be a relevant factor, in the latter case no such consideration arises.

11. In State of Nagaland v. Lipok AO, AIR 2005 SC 2191, the Supreme Court has observed that justice-oriented approach should be adopted. Unless a pragmatic view is taken, injustice is bound to occur.

12. With respect to the aspect of condonation of delay, especially in land acquisition cases, the courts have adopted rather a liberal

approach. The reason behind such liberality in condoning the delay in preferring appeal is primarily because, more often than not, the land- losers are persons who hail from villages and who are not aware of legal intricacies and the requirement of law.

13. None the less, this court is of the opinion that it would be really harsh on the applicant/appellant if the delay in this case is not condoned as it would shut him out the benefits which might accrue to others who are similarly placed.

14. Considering the aforesaid aspects and for the reasons stated in the application, the delay of 694 days in preferring the appeal is condoned.

15. The application is allowed.

LA APP.537/2015

1. This is an appeal under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act against the judgment dated 26.10.2013 passed by the learned Additional District Judge-01, North-East District, Karkardooma Courts, Delhi in LAC No.21-A/2011 (Bharat Singh vs. Union of India & Anr.).

2. Learned counsel appearing for the appellant submits that LA. APP. 2/2013 (Om Prakash & Ors. vs. Union of India & Anr.) arising out of the same award has been admitted by this Court.

3. Issue notice to the respondents. Notices are accepted by Ms.Jyoti Tyagi and Mr.Karan Sharma, learned counsel for Union of India and DDA respectively.

4. The appeal is admitted for hearing.

5. List this appeal along with LA. APP.2/2013 (Om Prakash & Ors. vs. Union of India & Anr.) in the category of "Regulars" as per its own turn.

ASHUTOSH KUMAR, J MAY 16, 2016 k