Jharkhand High Court
Basanti Devi vs Birla Institute Of Technology on 5 January, 2022
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
M. A. No. 233 of 2014
1. Basanti Devi
2. Ritan Devi
3. Balmani Devi .... .... Appellants
Versus
Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi
.... .... Respondent
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CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GAUTAM KUMAR CHOUDHARY
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For the Appellants : M/s A.K. Sahani & Ajit Kumar, Advocates
For the Respondent : Mr. Rahul Kr. Das, Advocate
Oral Order
11 / Dated : 05.01.2022
This misc. appeal has been preferred under Section 54 of the
Land Acquisition Act against the order dated 14.05.2012 passed by the
Judicial Commissioner, Ranchi by which the petition under Section 5 of
the Limitation Act for condonation of delay in filing the Title Appeal No.
20/2010 was dismissed and consequently the appeal stood dismissed at the
admission stage itself.
2. Being aggrieved by the impugned order this appeal has been
preferred on the ground that the delay in preferring the appeal before the
Court below was not intentional but they had no information about the
disposal of the suit and, therefore, the appeal could not be preferred in
time. For the ends of substantial justice the impugned order has been
prayed to be set aside so that title appeal could be restored to its file and
be heard on merit.
3. On perusal of the impugned order it appears that Title Appeal
Nos. 20-23/ 2020 were filed against the common judgment and decree
after a delay of 1743 days. The plea which was taken before the Court
below for condonation of delay was that the Pairvikar of the appellants
could not inform the parties regarding the Judgment in which the
appellants had already appeared and filed the written statement. They
came to know about the passing of the impugned Judgment and decree
only when the notice was published in the local newspaper during
pendency of Execution Case No. 10 of 2008. Learned Court below has
rejected the condonation petition mainly on the ground that it was not
natural conduct on the part of the appellants that even if Pairvikar had not
informed about the next date, they never came to ascertain themselves as
to what was going in the said suit. Further, no explanation was given that
if the appellants applied for the certified copy on 26.11.2009 which was
made available to them on 28.1.2010 why the appeal was filed on
16.02.2010. Relying on the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in (2011)
4 SCC 367 the condonation petition was rejected.
4. A brief reference to conduct of the appellants in pursuing the
present appeal will be relevant. This appeal was also filed after a delay of
685 days and after condonation of delay now it is being heard on the point
of admission. It will be relevant to note that the other appellants had
preferred Misc. Appeal Nos. 232, 234 and 235 of 2014 against the
impugned the Judgment and order, all of which have been dismissed for
default. With regard to the merit of the ground taken for delay in filing the
Title appeal before the learned Court below, I find that appellants failed to
take any cogent and convincing reason for causing the inordinate delay in
filing the appeal. It has been held in P.K. Ramachandran Vs State of
Kerala 1998 (AIR 2276 SC) that law of limitation has to be applied with
all its rigour when the statute so prescribes and the Courts have no power
to extend limitation on equitable grounds.
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 is 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] .-
Here in the instant appeal, I find that the appeal had been
preferred before the learned Court below after an inordinate delay of 1743
days regarding which no cogent reason has been assigned. It has been
contended that they got information about the disposal of the case only
when after the paper publication in the execution case and they had no
knowledge of the disposal of the suit, because the Pairvikar had not
informed them, is not at all convincing since the parties had appeared
before the learned Court below and contested the suit by filing their
written statement. The manner in which even the instant appeal had been
filed after considerable delay, speaks volumes about the conduct and
insincerity of the appellant. The delay in filing the first appeal before the
Court below appears to be not by default but by design to delay the
execution proceeding. The litigants cannot in any case have an unlimited
drought on the Court hours and proceed in a lackadaisical manner.
The learned Court below has passed a reasoned order dismissing
the appeal on the ground that it was barred by limitation. I do not find any
error or illegality in the order so as to warrant interference by this Court.
This appeal is accordingly dismissed with cost. The cost assessed
at Rs 25000/-.
(Gautam Kumar Choudhary, J.)
AKT
