U CHANDRAN S/O KANARAN Vs. GOVERNMENT OF KERALA REPRESENTED BY CHIEF SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners claim to own 5.85 acres of land at Vythiri. The same was notified as an ecologically fragile land. The notification was issued under Sec.3(2) of the Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Fragile Lands) Act (for short the Act). The application of the petitioners under Sec.10A of the Act was rejected by the principal chief conservator of forest. Against the said order was filed a writ petition by the petitioners before this court, but the same was withdrawn. They thereafter filed an application under Sec.10 of the Act before the tribunal constituted under the Act. They sought a declaration that their property was not an ecologically fragile land. Along with the said application they filed an interlocutory application (I.A.127/2016). It was filed for condoning the delay in filing the original application. The delay, according to the petitioners, was 61 days. The tribunal found the extent of the delay to be 2372 days. The tribunal dismissed I.A.127/2016 holding that there was inordinate and unexplained delay in filing the original application. The said order of the tribunal is assailed in the present original petition filed under article 227 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) We heard Sri.A.Komu and Sri.Nagaraj Narayanan, the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned special government pleader for forest cases respectively.

(3.) We need to go into the question as to what was the extent of delay and the question whether the delay was properly explained only if we find that there was any period of limitation prescribed for filing the original application. The Act does not prescribe any period of limitation for filing an application under Sec.10. But a period of limitation is prescribed by rule 3(1) of the Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Fragile Lands) Tribunal Rules (for short the Tribunal Rules). Rule 3(1) and its proviso read as under :