Order No. 11 date: 08-08-2017

Sri Shyamal Gupta, Member

Today is fixed for passing order in respect of the delay condonation petition of the Appellant.

By such petition, it is stated by the Appellant that out of the three Directors of the Company, due to the demise of two Directors, the Company faced acute management crisis.  As a result, the Company lost track of the complaint proceeding before the Ld. District Forum and remained unrepresented before it.  It is further stated that the Appellant gained knowledge about the impugned order on 16-02-2016 when Police called on the Appellant to execute WA.  The Appellant immediately rushed to the Ld. District Forum and applied for certified copy of the impugned order and obtained the same on 19-02-2016.  Thereafter, the Appellant met its Ld. Advocate together with relevant papers on 28-02-2016 and asked him to prepare Memo of Appeal and other requisite documents.  However, due to busy schedule of the Ld. Advocate, he could prepare the same on 12-03-2016.  Ultimately, the Appeal was filed on 01-04-2016.

Heard the Ld. Advocates of both sides and perused the material on record, including  the citations referred to in this regard.

It appears that there has been a delay of 244 days in filing this Appeal (excluding the statutory period of limitation).  Appellant attributed such long delay primarily to the demise of two out of three Directors of the Company and secondly, to the busy schedule of the conducting Ld. Advocate.

As regards the first cause shown, it appears that the Appellant has not filed any death certificate to show when its two Directors passed away.  Further, there is no clarity when such vacuum was filled up.  

It appears that the complaint was filed before the Ld. District Forum on 13-03-2014 and the same was disposed of on 30-06-2015. It is hardly believable that the turbulent phase remained prevalent in the company for so long. Also, in accordance with the direction of the Ld. District Forum, due communication was made to the Appellant for compliance of the impugned order.  However, the Appellant chose to ignore it for the reasons best known to it.  Therefore, the alibi of lack of knowledge about the impugned order, as floated by the Appellant, is not at all sustainable.

Coming to the issue of busy schedule of its Ld. Advocate which claimed to have caused some delay in filing this Appeal, be it mentioned here that the position of law is well settled in this matter – Lawyer’s ground is no ground.  The Appellant, thus, cannot seek any leniency on this score.

Lastly, it appears from the petition for condonation of delay that the Ld. Advocate prepared the Memo of Appeal on 12-03-2016 and the same was ready for filing on 14-03-2016.  However, for some obscure reasons, the Appellant has not accounted for the delay of 18 days (from 14-03-2016 to 01-04-2016) although it was incumbent on the part of the Appellant to justify each day delay.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Tilokchand Motichand & Ors vs H.B. Munshi & Anr, reported in 1970 AIR 898 observed that, “If a claim is barred under the Limitation Act, unless there are exceptional circumstances, prima facie it is a stale claim and should not be entertained by this Court”. 

Where the petitioner has not come with bona fide reasons to condone the delay, he is not entitled to be shown any indulgence.  The extent of liberal construction should not be such that it may totally ignore the public policy on which the law of limitation is founded and thereby defeat the very purpose of the law of limitation.  `Sufficient cause' has to be of the type, which is beyond control of the party invoking the provisions of section 5 of the Limitation Act. This is not the case here. In this regard, reference may be drawn to the decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Collector of Central Excise, Madras v. A.MD. Bilal & Co., reported in 1999 (108) Excise Law Times 331 (SC).

Overall, the petition appears to be bereft of any merit and as such, the same does not deserve any favourable consideration.  We, therefore, reject the same.  Consequent thereof, the Appeal stands dismissed being barred by limitation.