GULZAR SINGH Vs. GURU HARKRISHAN PUBLIC SCHOOL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India impugns the order of the Delhi School Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as 'the Tribunal') dated 02.9.2014, by which the Tribunal has dismissed the appeal filed by the petitioner/employee as being barred by time. As per the record, appeal would be barred by time by five months.

(2.) I am receiving quite a few orders of the Tribunal wherein I note that the Tribunal is seeming to take a very strict view of the matter with respect to condonation of delay, and which view ignores the ratio of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of N. Balakrishnan Vs. M. Krishnamurthy, 1998 AIR(SC) 3222 and which holds that unless there is deliberate, malafide or gross negligence, reasonable delay should be condoned inasmuch as a person does not benefit by filing a petition with delay. Once no malafides or illegal motive can be imputed to a person to file a petition with delay, delay should ordinarily be condoned. The relevant observations of the Supreme Court in the case of N.Balakrishnan read as under:-

(3.) Learned counsel appearing for the respondent/School, in view of the ratio of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of N.Balakrishnan could not very seriously dispute the proposition as regards the entitlement of petitioner to get condonation of delay and the fact that petitioner derives no benefit, much less has a malafide motive in deliberately delaying the filing of the appeal. In fact, the facts of the present case show that, really the petitioner would not have been correctly guided in law of not filing the appeal in time merely because another appeal against another order passed by the respondent/School was pending before the Tribunal.