TATA CHEMICALS LTD. Vs. GAYATRI SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This civil miscellaneous appeal was filed by the appellant-applicant Tata Chemicals Limited, Mithapur after a delay of 2534 days. Therefore, to get the delay condoned, an application under Sec. 5 of the Limitation Act has also been filed. In the said application, it was stated that the Insurance Company has filed S.B. Civil Misc. Appeal No.2270/2010 before this Court wherein the impugned award was challenged. The appellant-applicant received the notice of the aforesaid appeal in the year 2010 and its counsel filed Vakalatnama on 29.11.2010. After inspection of the file, the counsel for the appellant-applicant came to know that vide order dated 06.10.2010, the Insurance Company was directed to deposit the entire amount of award and the same was deposited on 19.10.2010. It was also directed by the Court to disburse 25% of the award amount i.e. Rs. 42,47,879.00 to the claimant-respondent. The liability imposed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Sawai Madhopur (hereinafter referred to as 'the tribunal') was joint and several and the entire amount of award was already deposited by the Insurance Company. In spite of this, the claimants filed an execution petition before the tribunal against the appellant-applicant. Since the award amount was already deposited, no execution application was maintainable and the tribunal was also not competent to order the recovery of the amount from the appellant-applicant. As the award amount was already deposited in the court, the appellant-applicant did not prefer any appeal. Since, the liability has been imposed by the executing court on the appellant-applicant, now the appellant-applicant has been compelled to prefer this appeal. Though there has been a delay in preferring this appeal, there is no negligence or inaction on its part. Therefore, considering the above facts and circumstances, the delay in filing the appeal may be condoned and the appeal may be decided on merits of the case along with the connected appeals filed by the Insurance Company and claimants.

(2.) Reply to the said application was filed by the claimants wherein it was stated that the appellant-applicant has concealed material facts with regard to the earlier litigation. The executing court passed an order on 02.12.2016 in execution petition No.45/2016 and directed the HDFC Bank of the appellant-applicant to remit the amount of Rs. 1,76,23,859.40.00 and consequently, a letter was issued by the tribunal on 16.12.2016. Against the order dated 02.12.2016, the appellant-applicant filed S.B.Civil Writ Petition No.549/2017 before this Court in which this court on 16.01.2017 passed an order of stay of recovery on the condition that the appellant-applicant would deposit 50% of the award amount within a period of two weeks. The appellant did not comply with the said order and the same was challenged by the appellant-applicant before Division Bench of this Court and the appeal filed by the appellant-applicant came to be registered as DBSPA No.83/2017. The said appeal was dismissed vide order dated 22.08.2017 and later on, the SBCWP No.549/2017 was also dismissed vider order dated 14.09.2017. The appellant-applicant deliberately concealed all the facts in the application for condonation of the delay and therefore, the same is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone. It was also stated in the application that the appeal is hopelessly time barred and delay in filing the appeal has not been satisfactorily explained and therefore, the appeal is liable to be dismissed.

(3.) I have heard learned counsel for the parties.