STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH Vs. BUDHI SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for condonation of delay in filing an appeal under Sec. 110 -D, Motor Vehicles Act, 1939.

(2.) The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal made its award on October 3, 1972. The award was made against the Himachal Government Transport, Chamba. With a view to preferring an appeal against the award the Himachal Government Transport, Chamba, applied for a certified copy of the award on October 10, 1972. A second application, which was numbered 665, for a certified copy of the award, was made on December 22, 1972. Consequent upon the second application, a certified copy of the award was prepared on February 17, 1973, and delivered on the same date. There is some controversy as to what happened to the first application. The register of the Copying Agency, which was summoned by us, contains an entry that the application was returned on February 13, 1973. The memorandum of appeal filed in this Court was accompanied by the certified copy of the award obtained on the second application. There is no dispute as to that. That certified copy bears an endorsement showing that it was prepared consequent to application number 665, made on December 22, 1972, and that it was ready and delivered on February 17, 1973. If the period of limitation for the appeal is computed by reference to the time taken in preparing this certified copy, then admittedly it expired on March 1, 1973. The appeal was filed on April 5, 1973. As it appeared to be barred by time it was returned to the learned Advocate -General for filing it along with an application for condonation of delay. The appeal was refiled with such an application on May 7, 1973.

(3.) Successive affidavits have been filed before us in the attempt to explain the delay and to show that the appeal should be treated as being within time. But it appears that with each affidavit an attempt has been made to improve upon the case disclosed by the preceding affidavits and yet the curious result has been to create a pervading inconsistency between the different affidavits. As the several affidavits are read one after the other, it would seem that no serious attempt has been made by the Appellant to ascertain the exact facts and to determine the true course of events concerning the applications for the certified copies. The investigation of the facts appears to have been conducted in a perfunctory and haphazard manner, the averments in the affidavits changing their course with each shifting wind. That is a serious matter especially as the affidavits filed before us purport to have been sworn to the knowledge of the deponent, and the deponent should be presumed to have known when swearing the affidavits that he was exposing himself to the possibility of criminal proceedings besides involving the rejection of the application for condonation of delay and, therefore, the dismissal of the appeal.