C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 16608 of 2018 With CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR BRINGING HEIRS) NO. 1 of 2023 In R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 16608 of 2018 With CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR JOINING PARTY) NO. 1 of 2025 In R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 16608 of 2018 With CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR CONDONATION OF DELAY) NO. 2 of 2023 In R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 16608 of 2018 ========================================================== JIVIBEN DUDHABHAI TIRAGAR & ORS. Versus KARANSINH SWAROOPSINH THAKOR (DECEASED) & ORS. ========================================================== Appearance: MR UM SHASTRI(830) for the Petitioner(s) No. 1 DECEASED LITIGANT THROUGH LEGAL HEIRS/ REPRESTENTATIVES for the Respondent(s) No. 1 GOVERNMENT PLEADER for the Respondent(s) No. 5 MR.KARANSINH SOLANKI(6541) for the Respondent(s) No. 2,3 UNSERVED EXPIRED (N) for the Respondent(s) No. 4 ========================================================== CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE MAULIK J.SHELAT Date : 20/06/2025 ORAL ORDER ORAL ORDER 1. Heard learned Advocate Mr. U. M. Shastri for the petitioners. 2. The present application is filed under Article-227 of the Constitution of India, seeking following reliefs: “(a) That the Hon'ble Court be please to admit the petition filed by the petitioners. Page 1 of 10 C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 (b) That the Hon'ble court after perusing the case, be pleased to quashed and set aside the order passed by the Ld. Additional District Judge Panchmahal at Godhra on 24-4-2017 in Misc. Civil Application no. 32 / 2015. (c) Any other appropriate order, directions that may be deemed fit and proper be issued in the facts and circumstances of this case.” 3. Learned Advocate Mr. Shastri would submit that Appellate Court has not condone the delay of 5 years, 3 months and 16 days in filing the appeal, whereby petitioners are constrained to challenge such order passed by the District Court. 3.1 Learned Advocate Mr. Shastri would submit that as per the settled legal position of law, appellate court ought to have taken liberal view and ought to have condone the delay. 3.2 Learned Advocate Mr. Shastri would further submit that hyper technical approach taken by appellate court, whereby instead of condoning the delay, impugned delay application was rejected. thereby petitioners who are original plaintiffs were unable to espouse their cause in filing appeal. 3.3 Learned Advocate Mr. Shastri would further submit that petitioner would pay reasonable costs to other side and compensating other side by paying costs. This court may exercise its jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India in favour of the plaintiff and may condone the delay in filing the appeal. Page 2 of 10 C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 3.4 Making the above submissions, learned Advocate Mr. Shastri would request this Court to allow the present writ application. 4. Per Contra, learning Assistant Government Pleader, Mr.Dhaval Trivedi, appearing for the State - respondent No.5 would submit that impugned delay application is bereft of any material particulars, and as such, no sufficient cause made out by the petitioner and as such, there is no irregularity, illegality, and/or any erroneous and perverse reasons assigned by the Appellate court, while rejecting the impugned delay application. 4.1 Making the above submission, learned Assistant Government Pleader Mr. Trivedi, would request this Court to reject the present writ application. 5. I have heard the learning Advocates appearing for the respective parties at length. After going through the impugned application, it appears that no sufficient cause is made out by petitioner in filing appeal after about more than a period of 5 years. As such it is a gross and inordinate delay on the part of petitioner approaching the Appellate Court by way of regular appeal when lost before the Trial Court. 6. The impugned application is bereft of any material particulars and in absence of any sufficient cogent and reasons assigned by the petitioner which cause delay in filing appeal, it would be not appropriate for this court to exercise power under C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 Article 227 of the Constitution of India to condone such huge inordinate and unexplained delay in filing appeal. Now, law on issue of condonation of delay is well settled by honourable Apex Court of India. Some of such decisions are preferred as under: 6.1 It is apt to rely upon the decision of Honourable Supreme Court of India in a case of Rajneesh Kumar & Anr V/S Ved Prakash reported in 2024 (14) SCALE 406 wherein held as under, “[10] It appears that the entire blame has been thrown on the head of the advocate who was appearing for the petitioners in the trial court. We have noticed over a period of time a tendency on the part of the litigants to blame their lawyers of negligence and carelessness in attending the proceedings before the court. Even if we assume for a moment that the concerned lawyer was careless or negligent, this, by itself, cannot be a ground to condone long and inordinate delay as the litigant owes a duty to be vigilant of his own rights and is expected to be equally vigilant about the judicial proceedings pending in the court initiated at his instance. The litigant, therefore, should not be permitted to throw the entire blame on the head of the advocate and thereby disown him at any time and seek relief. [12] As regards the law of limitation, we may refer to the decision of this Court in Bharat Barrel & Drum MFG Go. v. The Employees State Insurance Corporation, 1971 2 SCC 860, wherein this Court held as under:- "The necessity for enacting periods of limitation is to ensure that actions are commenced within a particular period, firstly to assure the availability of evidence documentary as well as oral to enable the defendant to contest the claim against him; secondly to give C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 effect to the principle that law does not assist a person who is inactive and sleeps over his rights by allowing them when challenged or disputed to remain dormant without asserting them in a Court of law. The principle which forms the basis of this rule is expressed in the maximum vigilantibus, non dermientibus, jura subveniunt (the laws give help to those who are watchful and not to those who sleep). Therefore, the object of the statutes of limitations is to compel a person to exercise his right of action within a reasonable time as also to discourage and suppress stale, fake or fraudulent claims." (Emphasis supplied) 6.2 It is apposite to refer to and rely upon a recent decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of K.B. Lal (Krishna Bahadur Lal) v. Gyanendra Pratap & Ors., reported in 2024 (4) Scale 759, wherein, after revisiting the law on the aspect of condonation of delay, the Hon’ble Apex Court has held as under: “10. There is no gainsaying the fact that the discretionary power of a court to condone delay must be exercised judiciously and it is not to be exercised in cases where there is gross negligence and/or want of due diligence on part of the litigant (See Majji Sannemma @ Sanyasirao v. Reddy Sridevi & Ors. (2021) 18 SCC 384). The discretion is also not supposed to be exercised in the absence of any reasonable, satisfactory or appropriate explanation for the delay (See P.K. Ramachandran v. State of Kerala and Anr., (1997) 7 SCC 556). Thus, it is apparent that the words ‘sufficient cause' in Section 5 of the Limitation Act can only be given a liberal construction, when no negligence, nor inaction, nor want of bona fide is imputable to the litigant (See Basawaraj and Anr. v. Special Land Acquisition Officer., (2013) 14 C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 SCC 81). The principles which are to be kept in mind for condonation of delay were succinctly summarised by this Court in Esha Bhattacharjee v. Managing Committee of Raghunathpur Nafar Academy & Ors., (2013) 12 SCC 649, and are reproduced as under: “21.1. (i) There should be a liberal, pragmatic, justice- oriented, non-pedantic approach while dealing with an application for condonation of delay, for the courts are not supposed to legalise injustice but are obliged to remove injustice. 21.2. (ii) The terms “sufficient cause” should be understood in their proper spirit, philosophy and purpose regard being had to the fact that these terms are basically elastic and are to be applied in proper perspective to the obtaining fact-situation. 21.3. (iii) Substantial justice being paramount and pivotal the technical considerations should not be given undue and uncalled for emphasis. 21.4. (iv) No presumption can be attached to deliberate causation of delay but, gross negligence on the part of the counsel or litigant is to be taken note of. 21.5. (v) Lack of bona fides imputable to a party seeking condonation of delay is a significant and relevant fact. 21.6. (vi) It is to be kept in mind that adherence to strict proof should not affect public justice and cause public mischief because the courts are required to be vigilant so that in the ultimate eventuate there is no real failure of justice. 21.7. (vii) The concept of liberal approach has to encapsulate the conception of reasonableness and it cannot be allowed a totally unfettered free play. 21.8. (viii) There is a distinction between inordinate delay and a delay of short duration or few days, for to the former doctrine of prejudice is attracted whereas to the latter it may not be attracted. That apart, the first one warrants strict C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 approach whereas the second calls for a liberal delineation. 21.9. (ix) The conduct, behaviour and attitude of a party relating to its inaction or negligence are relevant factors to be taken into consideration. It is so as the fundamental principle is that the courts are required to weigh the scale of balance of justice in respect of both parties and the said principle cannot be given a total go by in the name of liberal approach. 21.10. (x) If the explanation offered is concocted, or the grounds urged in the application are fanciful, the courts should be vigilant not to expose the other side unnecessarily to face such a litigation.” (Emphasis supplied) 6.3 Last but not least, it is also profitable to refer to and rely upon ratio laid down by recent past decision of Honourable Supreme Court of India in a case of Pathapati Subba Reddy (Died) BY L RS & ORS V/S Special Deputy Collector (LA) reported in 2024 INSC 286 : 2024 (4) SCR 241 : 2024 (4) Scale 846 wherein after referring to its previous decisions, summarized the case law on the issue of limitation vis-a-vis condonation of delay in context of "sufficient cause". It has been so observed and held as under,Last but not least, it is also profitable to refer to and rely upon ratio laid down by recent past decision of Honourable Supreme Court of India in a case of Pathapati Subba Reddy (Died) BY L RS & ORS V/S Special Deputy Collector Page 7 of 10 C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 (LA) reported in 2024 INSC 286 : 2024 (4) SCR 241 : 2024 (4) Scale 846 wherein after referring to its previous decisions, summarized the case law on the issue of limitation vis-a-vis condon "[26] On a harmonious consideration of the provisions of the law, as aforesaid, and the law laid down by this Court, it is evident that: (i) Law of limitation is based upon public policy that there should be an end to litigation by forfeiting the right to remedy rather than the right itself; (ii) A right or the remedy that has not been exercised or availed of for a long time must come to an end or cease to exist after a fixed period of time; (iii) The provisions of the Limitation Act have to be construed differently, such as Section 3 has to be construed in a strict sense whereas Section 5 has to be construed liberally; (iv) In order to advance substantial justice, though liberal approach, justice-oriented approach or cause of substantial justice may be kept in mind but the same cannot be used to defeat the substantial law of limitation contained in Section 3 of the Limitation Act; (v) Courts are empowered to exercise discretion to condone the delay if sufficient cause had been explained, but that exercise of power is discretionary in nature and may not be exercised even if sufficient cause is established for various factors such as, where there is inordinate delay, negligence and want of due diligence; (vi) Merely some persons obtained relief in similar matter, it does not mean that others are also entitled to the same benefit if the court is not satisfied with the cause shown for the delay in filing the appeal; (vii) Merits of the case are not required to be considered in condoning the delay; and Page 8 of 10 C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 (viii) Delay condonation application has to be decided on the parameters laid down for condoning the delay and condoning the delay for the reason that the conditions have been imposed, tantamounts to disregarding the statutory provision." 6.4 It is also profitable to rely upon the decision of the Hon’ble Supeme Court of India in the case of case of Basawaraj and Another v. Special Land Acquisition Officer reported in 2013 (14) SCC 81 wherein it is held as under:- “15. The law on the issue can be summarised to the effect that where a case has been presented in the court beyond limitation, the applicant has to explain the court as to what was the "sufficient cause" which means an adequate and enough reason which prevented him to approach the court within limitation. In case a party is found to be negligent, or for want of bonafide on his part in the facts and circumstances of the case, or found to have not acted diligently or remained inactive, there cannot be a justified ground to condone the delay. No court could be justified in condoning such an inordinate delay by imposing any condition whatsoever. The application is to be decided only within the parameters laid down by this court in regard to the condonation of delay. In case there was no sufficient cause to prevent a litigant to approach the court on time condoning the delay without any justification, putting any condition whatsoever, amounts to passing an order in violation of the statutory provisions and it tantamounts to showing utter disregard to the legislature.” (Emphasis supplied) 7. Thus, in view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances and C/SCA/16608/2018 ORDER DATED: 20/06/2025 the position of law, stand as on date when though sufficient cause is made out by the petitioner in filing the appeal after period of more than 5 years, no fault can be found with the appellate court when it has not condoned such inordinate, unexplained delay. 8. Thus, present application lacks merit, requires to be rejected which is hereby rejected. No order as to costs. Notice is discharged. 9. Civil Application Nos.1 and 2 of 2023 both allowed. 10. Civil Application No.1 of 2025 is also allowed. The amendment in cause title of Special Civil Suit No.16608/2018 is to be carried out forthwith. (MAULIK J.SHELAT,J) Nilesh Original copy of this order has been signed by the Hon'ble Judge. Digitally signed by: PARMAR NILESHKUMAR R(HCD0068), ENGLISH STENOGRAPHER GRADE TWO CLASS TWO, at High Court of Gujarat on 23/06/2025 11:45:54