Himachal Pradesh High Court
The Land Acquisition Collector And Anr. vs . on 26 August, 2025
The Land Acquisition Collector and anr. Vs.
Rajender Singh and Ors.
.
CMP(M) No.1166 of 2025
26.08.2025 Present: Mr. B.N. Sharma, Mr. Diwakar Dev Sharma and
Mr. Raj Kumar Negi, Addl. Advocates General
with Mr. R.P. Singh and Mr. Manish Thakur, Dy.
Advocates General, for the applicants/State.
Mr. Aman Parth Sharma, Advocate, for the
respondents
Mr. Aman Parth Sharma, Advocate has put in
appearance on behalf of respondents and filed memo of
appearance for today. He prays for and is granted time to
file Power of Attorney. Needful be done on or before the
next date of hearing.
No reply is intended to be filed on behalf of the
non-applicants.
Heard counsel for the parties and perused the
pleadings.
In the filing of the present appeal, there is a
delay of about 128 days. The same has been duly explained
in the application filed for condonation of delay. Even
otherwise, while dealing with an application for
condonation of delay filed by the State, one has to be
conscious of the bureaucratic delays, impersonal nature of
the governmental functioning, institutional interest and
hence a justice oriented liberal approach has to be taken
while dealing with such applications.
In this respect, it would be appropriate to refer
to decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court passed in State of
.
Manipur and others vs. Koting Lamkang, 2019 (10)
SCC 408. The relevant extract of the same is being
reproduced herein below:-
"7. But while concluding as above, it was
necessary for the Court to also be
conscious of the bureaucratic delay and
the slow pace in reaching a government
decision and the routine way of deciding
whether the State should prefer an appeal
r against a judgment adverse to it. Even
while observing that the law of limitation
would harshly affect the party, the Court
felt that the delay in the appeal filed by
the State, should not be condoned.
8. Regard should be had in similar such
circumstances to the impersonal nature of
the Government's functioning where
individual officers may fail to act
responsibly. This in turn, would result in
injustice to the institutional interest of the
State. If the appeal filed by State are lost
for individual default, those who are at
fault, will not usually be individually
affected".
Other than the aforesaid, it would also be
appropriate to refer to judgment dated 09.10.2023, passed
in Civil Appeal No.5867 of 2015 titled Sheo Raj Singh
(deceased) through LRs. and others vs. Union of
India and another. The relevant extract of the same is
being reproduced herein below:-.
"37. Having bestowed serious
consideration to the rival contentions, we
feel that the High Court's decision to
condone the delay on account of the first
respondent's inability to present the
appeal within time, for the reasons
assigned therein, does not suffer from any
error warranting interference. As the
aforementioned judgments have shown,
.
such an exercise of discretion does, at
times, call for a liberal and justice-
oriented approach by the Courts, where
certain leeway could be provided to the
State. The hidden forces that are at work
in preventing an appeal by the State being
presented within the prescribed period of
limitation so as not to allow a higher court
to pronounce upon the legality and
validity of an order of a lower court and
thereby secure unholy gains, can hardly
be ignored. Impediments in the working
of the grand scheme of governmental
r functions have to be removed by taking a
pragmatic view on balancing of the
competing interests."
Hence, for the reasons/sufficient cause stated
in the application & the aforesaid position of law, delay in
filing the present appeal is condoned. Application stands
disposed of.
RFA No. of 2025
Be registered.
Admit
Records be called for.
CMP No. of 2025
Be registered.
Operation and execution of impugned order
dated 26.09.2024, passed by the Ld. Additional District
Judge Ghumarwin, District Bilaspur, HP in Land Reference
Petition No.3-4 of 2017, titled Rajender Singh and Ors. Vs.
The Land Acquisition Collector, are ordered to be stayed,
subject to deposit of the entire enhanced compensation
amount along with up to date interest accrued thereupon
within eight weeks. Application stands disposed of.
.
(Bipin C. Negi)
Judge
26th August, 2025
(Gaurav Rawat)
r to
