REKHI EDUCATION SOCIETY (REGD.) Vs. DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Regular Second Appeal under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) is filed by the appellant/plaintiff against the impugned Judgment of the First Appellate Court dated 5.8.2016 by which the first appellate court has dismissed the first appeal as barred by limitation because there was an unexplained delay of 448 days in filing of the first appeal. The first appellate court found that the grounds for condonation of delay were not valid grounds for condoning the delay.

(2.) The reasons given for condonation of delay in the application for condonation of delay are contained in para 2 of the application under Section 5 of The Limitation Act, 1963 read with the Order XLI Rule 3A CPC and which para reads as under:-

(3.) Though the aforesaid paragraph is a long one, essentially two reasons have been given for not filing of the first appeal in time. The first reason is that the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and the Secretary of the society Mr. Harmeet Singh were not in Delhi because they were settling the matrimonial disputes of brother/brother-in-law of the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and also of the Secretary in which the sister-in-law of the President and Secretary of the appellant/plaintiff/society was said to have falsely implicated the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and her family members. In my opinion, this ground would have been good enough if there was sought condonation of delay of may be a few days or even a few weeks or a month or two inasmuch as persons can be held up in Ludhiana, which is not too far away from Delhi, for such continuous time of only a few weeks or a month or two, but it is almost impossible to believe that the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and the Secretary Mr. Harmeet Singh did not come to Delhi at all from August, 2012 till when the first appeal was filed in November, 2013 or did not do any other normal worldly work in this period and nor is so observed in the application seeking condonation of delay. Surely the President and the Secretary would have regularly come to Delhi in the 448 days period and it is not possible to believe that for 1 1/2 years the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and the Secretary Mr. Harmeet Singh remained only in Ludhiana because this is not so stated that the President Mrs. Raveen Kaur and the Secretary Sh. Harmeet Singh never came to Delhi or never resided in Delhi for this entire period of 1 1/2 years because all that is stated is that the President and Secretary were "busy". Obviously, being busy in a criminal case is only a convenient explanation but not a valid explanation and this Court refuses to believe that for around 1 1/2 years the President and the Secretary could not file the first appeal including engaging an advocate for filing of the first appeal.