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21.

The aforesaid three judgments do support the argument of Shri Ranjit Kumar that even though Section 5 of the Limitation Act cannot be invoked for condonation of delay in filing an appeal under the Act because that would tantamount to amendment of the legislative mandate by which special period of limitation has been prescribed, Section 14 can be invoked in an appropriate case for exclusion of the time during which the aggrieved person may have prosecuted with due diligence remedy before a wrong forum, but on a careful scrutiny of the record of these cases, we are satisfied that Section 14 of the Limitation Act cannot be relied upon for exclusion of the period during which the writ petitions filed by the appellants remained pending before the Delhi High Court. In the applications filed by them before the Bombay High Court, the appellants had sought condonation of 1056 days' delay by stating that after receiving copy of the order passed by the Appellate Tribunal, they had filed writ petitions before the Delhi High Court, which were disposed of on 26.7.2010 and, thereafter, they filed appeals before the Bombay High Court under Section 35 of the Act. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the applications for condonation of delay which are identical in all the cases were as under:

3.6 It is, further submitted that the delay of 1056 days in filing the present Appeal was bonafide, unintentional and inadvertent."

[3] It is further submitted by Mr.Shah, learned advocate for the respondent no.1 that in para 3 of the present application, it is mentioned that bona fide mistake was committed by the applicants by filing appropriate proceedings before wrong forum and after getting advise from the advocate, the applicant approached this Court with delay condonation application considering section 14 of the Limitation Act. Therefore, it is requested to dismiss the application.

[4] So far as reliance placed by the learned advocate for respondent no.1 decision of the Hon ble Supreme Court in the case of Ketan Parekh (supra) is concerned, in the said case, there was no averment that appellants had been prosecuting before wrong forum and they could not file application and so application was rejected. In the present case, specific averments are made in para 3 of the application that bona fide mistake was committed by the applicants by filing proceedings before the wrong forum. Therefore, this decision is not helpful to the respondent no.1.