Madhya Pradesh High Court
State Of M.P. And Anr. vs Omprakash And Anr. on 17 June, 2014
1
First Appeal No.622/2012
17.06.2014
Ms. Mini Ravindran, learned Deputy Government
Advocate for the appellant / State.
Shri O.P. Arya, learned counsel for the respondents.
Heard on IA No.5395/2012, an application for condonation of delay in filing the appeal.
The delay is of 373 days.
Learned Deputy Government Advocate has submitted that the impugned award was passed on 28.01.2011. As soon as the Department came to the knowledge of this award, sought the opinion from the Government Advocate and after receiving the opinion on 07.04.2011, the matter was forwarded to the Executive Engineer, Water Resources Division and he forwarded the same to Superintending Engineer on 19.10.2011, then it was sent to Chief Engineer, Indore, who forwarded the matter to the Engineer-in-Chief on 23.12.2011 for seeking necessary permission from the Law Department for preferring an appeal. The Law Department has granted permission on 17.05.2012. Thereafter, the Officer-in-Charge of the case contacted the Government Advocate and filed the appeal. In this procedure, the appeal has been filed after delay of 360 days (in fact, the delay is of 373 days). In support, they have filed the affidavit of the OIC. Delay is bona fide, therefore, it is requested that the delay be condoned.
Learned counsel for the respondents seriously opposed 2 the application and submitted that the appellants have not given any explanation for the abnormal delay. He submitted that in similar facts, learned Single Judge of this Court declined to condone the delay. In support, he has filed the certified copy of First Appeals No.620/2012 (delay of 397 days), 625/2012 (delay of 383 days), 626/2012 (delay of 383 days), 629/2012 (delay of 383 days), 630/2012 (delay of 515 days), 631/2012 (delay of 318 days) and 632/2012 (delay of 515 days). He has also placed reliance on the order dated 21.04.2014 passed by Division Bench in the connected cases relating to State of MP and another v. Habib & others in FA No.633/2012 declining to condone the delay on identical facts. In these circumstances, he prayed that this application be dismissed.
Before examining the facts of this case, we will like to refer the recent judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of State of UP v. Amar Nath Yadav (2014) 2 SCC 422 whereby it is held that: -
"In our view, it is the right time to inform all the government bodies, their agencies and instrumentalities that unless they have reasonable and acceptable explanation for the delay and there was bona fide effort, there is no need to accept the usual explanation that the file was kept pending for several months / years due to considerable degree of procedural red tape in the process. The government departments are under a special obligation to ensure that they perform their 3 duties with diligence and commitment. Condonation of delay is an exception and should not be used as an anticipated benefit for the government departments. The law shelters everyone under the same light and should not be swirled for the benefit of a few."
Hon'ble Supreme Court after giving this finding declined to condone the delay of 481 days.
We have gone through the record, though in the application, it is stated that in filing the appeal, there is a delay of 360 days whereas, as per the Office calculation, the delay is of 373 days. There is no proper explanation offered by the Department for the delay except mentioning of various dates. The department has not given any acceptable or cogent reason to condone such a huge delay of 373 days. In similar circumstances, learned Single Judge of this Court as also the Division Bench and declined to condone the huge delay in above referred appeals. The Hon'ble Apex Court has also held that when the government bodies have failed to explain the huge delay, the delay should not be condoned, therefore, the application deserves to be dismissed. Hence, it is hereby dismissed.
As a consequence, the appeal is also dismissed.
(Shantanu Kemkar) (Mool Chand Garg)
Judge Judge
4
Pithawe RC