No. 4/04.11.2010.

HON’BLE JUSTICE SRI PRABIR KUMAR SAMANTA, PRESIDENT.

Appellants through Mr. S. P. Banerjee, the Ld. Advocate and Respondent through Mr. Barun Prasad, the Ld. Advocate are present.

This is an application for condonation of delay in filing this appeal before this State Commission.  The appeal has been filed out of time by 114 days.  The complaint case was decided by judgement and order dated 06.01.2010.  It has been stated in the above application that the Appellants were informed by their Ld. Advocate as to the fate of the complaint case on 13.01.2010 and at the same time wrote that the Certified Copy of the said order had been misplaced by him.  The said certified copy was ultimately traced out but could not be forwarded to the Appellant because of the prevailing political problems in Darjeeling.  Ultimately the said certified copy was handed over to the Appellant on 07.04.2010 and thereafter the appeal was filed on 08.06.2010.

Interestingly the certified copy that has been annexed to the Memorandum of appeal shows that the same was applied for on 21.01.2010 for the first time.  The same was delivered on 25.01.2010.  This fact clearly belies the statement made in paragraph 2 of the above application that the certified copy was obtained before 13.01.2010 and stood lost when the Ld. Advocate for the Appellant communicated the above fate of the complaint case to the Appellants on 13.01.2010.  There is also no proper explanation with any materials whatsoever for the period from 25.01.2010 till 07.04.2010 when the certified copy was handed over to the Appellant by the said Ld. Advocate.  Moreover, the Appellant has not approached this Commission for condonation of delay with clean hands.

For the reasons as aforesaid we do not find sufficient explanation for the delay in filing the above appeal.  The application for condonation of delay is accordingly dismissed.  The appeal shall accordingly stand as dismissed being barred by limitation.