( 2025:HHC:21822 ) IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA. CMP(M) No. 339 of 2024 Decided on: 08.07.2025 ____________________________________________________ Mohinder Singh ……….. applicant Versus Milap Chand and others respondents ____________________________________________________ Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Bipin Chander Negi, Judge Whether approved for reporting? 1 For the applicant : Mr. Abhimanyu Kalsy, Advocate (through VC). For the respondents : None. ____________________________________________________ Bipin Chander Negi, Judge (oral) The present application has been filed seeking condonation of delay of 328 days in filing of the regular second appeal. 2. Respondents/non-applicants though were served, none has put in appearance on their behalf, hence for deciding the application for condonation of delay, only averment contained in the application filed seeking condonation of delay are being considered. 3. Admittedly, in the case at hand, the 1st Appellate Court had decided the case finally on 28.01.2023. Copy of the judgment was applied on 01.02.2023 and the same was delivered to the applicant on 02.02.2023. The appeal in the case at hand was filed on 23.03.2024. 4. From the perusal of the application filed for condonation of delay, initially delay in filing of the present appeal has been attributed to the applicant. It is submitted that the applicant had 1 Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 2 approached the counsel for the first time in the month of July, 2023. Thereafter, as per directions of the counsel, he had taken time for bringing the complete brief of the lower Court. The record of the lower Court was made available on 20.09.2023 to the present counsel. Thereafter, the applicant is stated to have approached the counsel in the month of December, 2023. Appeal is stated to have been prepared in the month of December, 2023. However, the same is said to have been misplaced in the office of the counsel. The same is stated to have been traced on 10.03.2024 and thereafter the appeal was filed on 21.03.2024. 5. I have heard learned counsel for the applicant and have gone through the pleadings. 6. At the very outset a reference is made to case reported as LAO v. Katiji 1987 (2) SCC 107 wherein it is held as hereunder: “3. The legislature has conferred the power to condone delay by enacting Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 in order to enable the courts to do substantial justice to parties by disposing of matters on “merits”. The expression “sufficient cause” employed by the legislature is adequately elastic to enable the courts to apply the law in a meaningful manner which subserves the ends of justice—that being the life-purpose for the existence of the institution of courts. It is common knowledge that this Court has been making a justifiably liberal approach in matters instituted in this Court. But the message does not appear to have percolated down to all the other courts in the hierarchy. And such a liberal approach is adopted on principle as it is realised that: 1. Ordinarily a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late. 2. Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out at the very threshold and cause of justice being defeated. As against this when delay is condoned the highest that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties. ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 3 3. “Every day’s delay must be explained” does not mean that a pedantic approach should be made. Why not every hour’s delay, every second’s delay? The doctrine must be applied in a rational common sense pragmatic manner. 4. When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred for the other side cannot claim to have vested right in injustice being done because of a non- deliberate delay. 5. There is no presumption that delay is occasioned deliberately, or on account of culpable negligence, or on account of mala fides. A litigant does not stand to benefit by resorting to delay. In fact he runs a serious risk. 6. It must be grasped that judiciary is respected not on account of its power to legalise injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so. Making a justice-oriented approach from this perspective, there was sufficient cause for condoning the delay in the institution of the appeal. The fact that it was the “State” which was seeking condonation and not a private party was altogether irrelevant. The doctrine of equality before law demands that all litigants, including the State as a litigant, are accorded the same treatment and the law is administered in an even-handed manner. There is no warrant for according a step-motherly treatment when the “State” is the applicant praying for condonation of delay. In fact experience shows that on account of an impersonal machinery (no one in charge of the matter is directly hit or hurt by the judgment sought to be subjected to appeal) and the inherited bureaucratic methodology imbued with the note-making, file- pushing and passing on-the-buck ethos, delay on its part is less difficult to understand though more difficult to approve. In any event, the State which represents the collective cause of the community, does not deserve a litigant-nongrata status. The courts therefore have to be informed with the spirit and philosophy of the provision in the course of the interpretation of the expression “sufficient cause”. So also the same approach has to be evidenced in its application to matters at hand with the end in view to do even-handed justice on merits in preference to the approach which scuttles a decision on merits. Turning to the facts of the matter giving rise to the present appeal, we are satisfied that sufficient cause exists for the delay. The order of the High Court dismissing the appeal before it as time-barred, is therefore, set aside. Delay is condoned. And the matter is remitted to ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 4 the High Court. The High Court will now dispose of the appeal on merits after affording reasonable opportunity of hearing to both the sides.” (emphasis in original) 7. In Katiji (supra) the entire conspectus relating to condonation of delay has been kept in focus. However, what cannot also be lost sight of is that the consideration therein was in the background of dismissal of the application seeking condonation of delay in a case where there was delay of four days pitted against the consideration that was required to be made on merits regarding the upward revision of compensation amounting to 800%. (University of Delhi v. Union of India, (2020) 13 SCC 745, at page 758). 8. Other than the aforesaid it would be appropriate to refer to case reported as Basawaraj v. Land Acquisition Officer, (2013) 14 SCC 81 for the legal propositions laid therein qua law of limitation. 12. It is a settled legal proposition that law of limitation may harshly affect a particular party but it has to be applied with all its rigour when the statute so prescribes. The court has no power to extend the period of limitation on equitable grounds. “A result flowing from a statutory provision is never an evil. A court has no power to ignore that provision to relieve what it considers a distress resulting from its operation.” The statutory provision may cause hardship or inconvenience to a particular party but the court has no choice but to enforce it giving full effect to the same. The legal maxim dura lex sed lex which means “the law is hard but it is the law”, stands attracted in such a situation. It has consistently been held that, “inconvenience is not” a decisive factor to be considered while interpreting a statute. 13. The statute of limitation is founded on public policy, its aim being to secure peace in the community, to suppress fraud and perjury, to quicken diligence and to prevent oppression. It seeks to bury all acts of the past which have not been agitated unexplainably and have from lapse of time become stale. According to Halsbury’s Laws of England, Vol. 28, p. 266: ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 5 “605. Policy of the Limitation Acts.—The courts have expressed at least three differing reasons supporting the existence of statutes of limitations namely, (1) that long dormant claims have more of cruelty than justice in them, (2) that a defendant might have lost the evidence to disprove a stale claim, and (3) that persons with good causes of actions should pursue them with reasonable diligence.” An unlimited limitation would lead to a sense of insecurity and uncertainty, and therefore, limitation prevents disturbance or deprivation of what may have been acquired in equity and justice by long enjoyment or what may have been lost by a party’s own inaction, negligence or laches. (See Popat and Kotecha Property v. SBI Staff Assn., Rajender Singh v. Santa Singh and Pundlik Jalam Patil v. Jalgaon Medium Project.) 14. In P. Ramachandra Rao v. State of Karnataka this Court held that judicially engrafting principles of limitation amounts to legislating and would fly in the face of law laid down by the Constitution Bench in Abdul Rehman Antulay v. R.S. Nayak.” 9. Ignorance of law is not an excuse, law applies with full vigour to all. “None are exempt from the applicability of the law of limitation”. 10. Admittedly, the delay in the case at hand is of 328 days. The length of delay is immaterial. The condonation of delay is a discretionary power. Exercise of discretion must necessarily depend upon the sufficiency of cause shown and the degree   of its acceptability thereof. The expression “sufficient cause” is to be duly examined from the view point of a reasonable standard of a cautious man. In this context, “sufficient cause” means that the party should not have acted in a negligent manner or there was a want of bonafide on its part (Basawaraj v. Land Acquisition Officer, (2013) 14 SCC 81). ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 6 11. The Court must distinguish between an ‘explanation’ and ‘excuse’. In this respect, it would be appropriate to refer a judgment reported as Sheo Raj Singh (deceased) through Legal Representatives & Others v. Union of India and Another, 2023 (10) SCC 531. The relevant extract of the same are as under: “…...Of course, the courts must distinguish between an ‘explanation’ and an ‘excuse’. An ‘explanation’ is designed to give someone all of the facts and lay out the cause for something. It helps clarify the circumstances of a particular event and allows the person to point out that something that has happened is not his fault, if it is really not his fault. Care must however be taken to distinguish an ‘explanation’ from an ‘excuse’. Although people tend to see ‘explanation’ and ‘excuse’ as the same thing and struggle to find out the difference between the two, there is a distinction which, though fine, is real. 32. An ‘excuse’ is often offered by a person to deny responsibility and consequences when under attack. It is sort of a defensive action. Calling something as just an ‘excuse’ would imply that the explanation proffered is believed not to be true. Thus said, there is no formula that caters to all situations and, therefore, each case for condonation of delay based on existence or absence of sufficient cause has to be decided on its own facts. At this stage, we cannot but lament that it is only excuses, and not explanations, that are more often accepted for condonation of long delays to safeguard public interest from those hidden forces whose sole agenda is to ensure that a meritorious claim does not reach the higher courts for adjudication.” 12. In view of the authoritative pronouncements of the Apex Court in “Union of India v. Vidarbha Venaer Industries, 1994 Supp (2) SCC 696”, mere loss of file without indicating action taken to fix responsibility on someone who should be accountable has been treated not to be a sufficient cause for condonation of inordinate delay. Relevant extract whereof is being reproduced herein below; “A mere statement that the relevant file was lost in some office cannot be treated as sufficient cause for condonation of inordinate delay. More so when there is nothing in the ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 7 application for condonation of delay to indicate the action taken to find out how the file got lost or to fix the responsibility of someone who should be accountable for the same. In the aforesaid facts and attending circumstances it was held that the application for condonation of delay had been made in a casual and routine manner without indicating facts which would constitute sufficient cause to permit condonation of delay.” 13. Admittedly, in the case at hand, the matter was finally decided by the 1st Appellate Court on 28.01.2023. In the proceedings before the 1st Appellate Court, the present applicant was duly represented by the counsel. Copy of the judgment passed by the 1st Appellate Court was applied on 01.02.2023 and the same was delivered to the applicant on 02.02.2023. 14. In the application for condonation of delay, it is pleaded by the applicant that he is an illiterate rustic villager not aware of the limitation period of 90 days for filing the regular second appeal before the High Court. In the attending facts and circumstances, the least that was accepted of the applicant was to have ascertained the period of limitation for filing the further appeal before this Court i.e. High Court. 15. A want of diligence on account of not having ascertained the period of limitation from the counsel who represented the applicant before the 1st Appellate Court can be attributed to the applicant as ascertaining the period of limitation for filing the regular second appeal in the case at hand was required to be done by the applicant. Previously also the applicant had preferred an appeal before the 1st Appellate Court. For filing of the same, also there exists a period of limitation. ( 2025:HHC:21822 ) 8 16. Besides the aforesaid, it would be appropriate to refer to the authoritative pronouncement of the Apex Court in SLP (C) No.17575 of 2023 Thirunagalingam vs. Lingeswaran & Anr. decided on 13.05.2025, relevant extract whereof is being reproduced herein below; Further, this Court has repeatedly emphasized in several cases that delay should not be condoned merely as an act of generosity. The pursuit of substantial justice must not come at the cost of causing prejudice to the opposing party. In the present case, the respondents/defendants have failed to demonstrate reasonable grounds of delay in pursuing the matter, and this crucial requirement for condoning the delay remains unmet. 17. The application for condonation of delay in the case at hand has been made in casual and routine manner without indicating facts which would constitute sufficient cause to permit condonation of delay. 18. In view of the aforesaid, present application is dismissed being devoid of merit. (Bipin Chander Negi) Judge July 8th, 2025 rupsi