No. 4/13.03.2009.

HON’BLE JUSTICE SRI A. CHAKRABARTI, PRESIDENT.

Heard Mr. Tapas Ghosal, the Ld. Advocate for the Appellant – Petitioner as also Mr. P. Banerjee, the Ld. Advocate for the Respondent.  In the application itself it has been stated that there is a delay of 114 days in preferring the appeal.  The Petitioner files a supplementary application in support of the condonation application and that too affirmed by an Affidavit of the Petitioner himself.  While explaining such long delay of 114 days Petitioner has not stated the period when his Ld. Advocate was ill.  Admittedly the copy of the order was handed over to the Petitioner on 02.09.2008 and in Paragraph 4 of the original application it has been stated that “the time taken to engage a lawyer in Calcutta on whom the Appellant/Petitioner could repose faith and confidence for prosecuting the appeal for assailing a judgment and order impugned in the instant appeal took some time and by that time the ensuing Puja Vacation of the Hon’ble High Court at Calcutta approached and the Hon’ble Court was closed for 4 weeks from 01^st October, 2008 i.e. the reopening day taking into account the benefit of the provisions of the General Clauses Act regarding calculation of limitation”.  The application proceeded to explain the preoccupation of the Ld. Advocate engaged in the Calcutta High Court stating categorically that “Mr. Tapas Ghoshal, Advocate being a regular practitioner in Calcutta High Court was awfully busy with important High Court Litigations during the closing week of the Hon’ble High Court and even during the vacation before the Hon’ble Vacation Bench taking urgent matters and as such Mr. Ghoshal was not in a position to apply his mind to the papers, documents and testimonials relating to the instant case”.  The Petitioner further proceeded to state that “moreover, as it usual, during the vacation the chamber of the said Learned Lawyer was put under renovation and the Learned Advocate was very much busy with his own family worships and other applied religious rites and rituals”. 

Thereafter some unspecified period has been admitted to be explained with the ailment of the Ld. Advocate of various natures.  But there also the Petitioner states that “after joining Court after recovery from his ailments the Learned Lawyer viz. Mr. Tapas Ghoshal was over-burdened with the back-log of High Court cases which resulted due to his long absence from Court and his ailments were mainly repeated bouts of attack to bronchial asthma and for which he was again advised to take rest”. 

We have also seen supplementary application where those statements have been reiterated but we are surprised to find that for explaining such long delay the period has not mentioned referring to the dates of various ailments.

In the circumstances though we normally take liberal view but in this case it is apparent that the delay occurred not because of only the ailments but because of the over occupation of the Ld. Advocate in the High Court matters and because the Ld. Advocate himself felt that all matters in the Hon’ble High Court are to be given importance but not to the proceeding in other courts and fora.  In our view this is not a circumstances justifying condonation of such long delay and, therefore, the application is dismissed and accordingly the appeal is stands dismissed without being admitted.