Jharkhand High Court
State Of Jharkhand vs Jamuna Das Dharmada Trust & Ors on 14 February, 2022
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
S. A. No. 131 of 2014
State of Jharkhand
represented through
Deputy Commissioner, Koderma & Anr. .... .... Appellants
Versus
Jamuna Das Dharmada Trust & Ors. .... .... Respondents
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CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GAUTAM KUMAR CHOUDHARY
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For the Appellants : Mr. Deepak Kr. Dubey, A.C. to AAG-II
For the Respondents : Mr. Anil Kumar, Sr. Advocate
Oral Order
21 / Dated : 14.02.2022
I.A. No. 4166 of 2014
1. Heard learned counsel for the appellants in this interlocutory
application which has been filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for
condoning delay of 1610 days in filing the instant appeal.
2. It is submitted by learned counsel for the appellants that after
passing of the impugned judgment and decree in Title Appeal No. 12 of
2007 the legal section of Koderma Administration sent a letter bearing
No. 06 dated 15.01.2010 to the Secretary, Department of Law and Justice,
State of Jharkhand, Ranchi with the certified copy of the judgment and
decree and all the relevant papers of the case with request to file the
second appeal in the Jharkhand High Court. The said letter was received
by the Law Department but no appeal was filed. When this was brought to
the notice by the Government Pleader of the Legal Section, Koderma
Administration, the Legal Section again obtained the certified copy of the
judgment and along with all the relevant papers with letter of the
Government Pleader, sent the same to the Secretary, Department of Law
and Justice, State of Jharkhand, Ranchi vide Letter No. 120 dated
25.05.2010 in which the then Deputy Commissioner, Koderma requested
the Department of Law and Justice to file the second appeal immediately.
Later on it was ascertained that the relevant papers were sent to the office
of the Advocate General of the High Court in Civil Appeal No. 08 of 2010
vide letter dated 09.06.2010 and the same was already received by the
office of the Advocate General, Ranchi but for the reasons best known to
the Advocate General the same could not be filed within time. It is further
submitted that the suit property is a valuable public property situated at
the heart of the Town of Jhumri Telaiya and the appellants were not
negligent on their part to prefer this appeal and the appeal could not be
filed before this Court due to circumstances beyond the control of the
appellants.
3. Learned senior counsel appearing for the respondents has
vehemently opposed the interlocutory application for condonation of
delay on the ground that no explanation has been given with regard to the
delay that occurred for filing the appeal from 2010 to 2014 and whatever
has been stated is prior to 2010. It is further submitted that the laws of
limitation applies equally to the State and the private individual. Reliance
has been placed on the order dated 16.12.2021 passed in Civil Appeal No.
7696 of 2021 (Majji Sannemma Vs. Reddy Sridevi and Ors.) wherein a
delay of 1011 days was refused to be condoned by the Hon'ble Supreme
Court as the appellant had failed to assign sufficient cause for the delay.
4. The instant appeal arises out of Title Suit No. 25 of 2004 which
was filed by the plaintiffs-respondents against the State of Jharkhand
represented through the Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Magistrate,
Koderma for declaration of the suit property comprising suit property
fully described in the plaint. The present appeal has been preferred against
the judgment of affirmation in appeal. The matter for consideration is
whether the appellants-State of Jharkhand represented through the Deputy
Commissioner, Koderma had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal
within the period of limitation.
It is manifest from the condonation petition that there was no
laches on the part of the District Administration in preferring the instant
appeal as the letters were sent twice for filing the appeal by the District
Administration after the judgment and decree in the title appeal. It also
transpires from the supplementary affidavit filed on behalf of the State
that the letters were received by the office of the Advocate General way
back in the year 2010 but unfortunately the second appeal could not be
filed on the laches on the part of the Advocate General office. This
reflects the sorrow state of affairs in which such important cases are
handled by the legal officer of the State Government. In any case the
interest of justice cannot be permitted to suffer on account of deliberate or
negligent act on the part of any State functionary.
Here the lis involves a piece of land which the appellant claims it to be a
valuable Govt. property. The appellants have explained circumstance
which is sufficient cause for in delay in filing the appeal. It has been held
in Oriental Aroma Chemical Industries Ltd. v. Gujarat Industrial
Development Corpn., (2010) 5 SCC 459
"15. The expression "sufficient cause" employed in Section 5 of the
Limitation Act, 1963 and similar other statutes are elastic enough to
enable the courts to apply the law in a meaningful manner which
subserves the ends of justice. Although, no hard-and-fast rule can be laid
down in dealing with the applications for condonation of delay, this Court
has justifiably advocated adoption of a liberal approach in condoning the
delay of short duration and a stricter approach where the delay is
inordinate--Collector (L.A.) v. Katiji [(1987) 2 SCC 107 : AIR 1987 SC
1353] , N. Balakrishnan v. M. Krishnamurthy [(1998) 7 SCC 123 : JT
(1998) 6 SC 242] and Vedabai v. Shantaram Baburao Patil [(2001) 9 SCC
106] .
16. In dealing with the applications for condonation of delay filed on
behalf of the State and its agencies/instrumentalities, this Court has, while
emphasizing that same yardstick should be applied for deciding the
applications for condonation of delay filed by private individuals and the
State, observed that certain amount of latitude is not impermissible in the
latter case because the State represents collective cause of the community
and the decisions are taken by the officers/agencies at a slow pace and
encumbered process of pushing the files from table to table consumes
considerable time causing delay"
Under the circumstance the interlocutory application for
condonation of delay in filing the appeal is allowed.
However, let this order be communicated to the Chief Secretary,
Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi for information as to the manner in
which such matters are dealt with by the legal officers of the State.
S.A. No. 131 of 2014
List this case after four weeks under the heading "For Admission".
(Gautam Kumar Choudhary, J.)
AKT
