STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. B K MEHTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an applicatfon for condoning the dely of 139 days in the filing of a criminal appeal by the State against an order passed by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, 26th Court, Bombay, in Case No. 225/MH/76. By that order the learned Magistrate has acquitted both the opponents in this application who had been charged before him with an offence punishable under section 394 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. The judgment of the learned Magistrate is of 10th of August 1976 and an application for certified copy of the judgment was made on 25th August 1976. The certified copy was ready and delivered on 17th November 1976. The prosecution was at the instance of the Sanitary Inspector of the Bomby Municipal Corporation and the Corporation thereafter for warded the papers to the Law and Judiciary Department of the Sachivalaya. The papers were received in that Department on 3rd January 1977. At this stage it may be mentioned that after making an allowance for the days spent in obtaining the certified copy of the judgment the last date for filing the appeal was 2nd January 1977.

(2.) It was incumbent, therefore, upon the Law and Judiciary Department which received the papers on 3rd August 1977 to attend to the papers immediately because the time for filing the appeal had already expired. The averment In the petition shows that the Government Resolution for filing the appeal was passed on 7th February 1977, i. e. more than a month after the papers were received. No explanation has been given why there was such an inordinate delay in taking a decision for filing an appeal. It is now well settled that once the period of limitation has expired, if a litigant wants the Court to condone the delay, then he is bound to explain every day's delay. Here a delay of over a month has remained to be explained.

(3.) The Office of the Public Prosecutor in the High Court received the papers on 8th February 1977 for the purpose of filing the appeal. The Officer of the Public Prosecutor felt the necessity of certain papers which were with the Municipal Corporation for the purpose of filing the appeal. The Public Prosecutor's Office, therefore, wrote to the Municipal Corporation for forwarding the necessnry papers and Information and the Corporation took its own time in helping the Public Prosecutor In that regard. Certain facts have been mentioned in the petition for the - purpose of explaining the delay. These facts include the non traceability of the papers, suspension of an officer who was entrusted with the prosecution in the lower Court, etc. These facts are, in my opinion, hoper lessly indequate in explaining the delay which has occurred from 5th February 1976, on which date the officer of the Public Prosecutor in the High Court wrote a letter to the Corporation, to 20th June 1977, when the appeal was ultimately filed Tnere is inexcusable delay in filing the appeal.