HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD WRIT - A No. - 15020 of 2026 Chief Justice's Court HON'BLE ARUN BHANSALI, CHIEF JUSTICE HON'BLE KSHITIJ SHAILENDRA, J. 1. Heard Shri Ritesh Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Purnendu Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the respondents. 2. This writ petition has been filed challenging the order dated 13.04.2026, whereby the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad Bench, Allahabad (‘Tribunal’) has rejected Misc. Application No. 3893 of 2015 seeking condonation of delay in filing the Original Application (‘O.A.’) No. 1337 of 2015 and, consequently, dismissed the said O.A. as time barred. 3. The O.A. was filed by the petitioner challenging the order dated 06.02.2002, whereby the respondents had terminated his services. An application being Misc. Application No. 3893 of 2015 was filed seeking condonation of delay in filing the O.A. and in the affidavit filed in support thereof, it was stated that the order of removal had not been served upon the petitioner, for which reason, the same could not be challenged by him within the period of limitation. It was further stated that the petitioner acquired knowledge of the order dated 06.02.2002 on receiving response to his application dated 26.05.2011 moved under the Right to Information Act, 2005 and then he filed an appeal on 09.04.2012 against the order dated 06.02.2002. It was further stated that since no order had been passed in the pending appeal, the petitioner was left with no alternative but to file the O.A. and, therefore, the delay should be condoned. 4. The Tribunal, after dealing with the contents of the application seeking Versus Counsel for Petitioner(s) : Ritesh Srivastava, Shweta Singh, Wilson Singh Counsel for Respondent(s) : A.S.G.I., Purnendu Kumar Singh Harish Chandra Saini .....Petitioner(s) Union of India and another .....Respondent(s) condonation of delay and placing reliance on the decisions of Hon’ble Supreme Court in Chennai Metro Politan Water Supply & Sewerage Borad and others vs. T.T. Murall Babu : (2014) 4 SCC 108 and Pashupati Subba Reddy (Died) by L.Rs. and others vs. Special Deputy Collector (LA) : 2024 SCC OnLine Sc 513, arrived at a conclusion that no plausible reason had been given or explained or brought on record by the petitioner in approaching the Tribunal only in the year 2015 after an inordinate and unexplained delay of 13 years from the date of punishment order and that the petitioner having not provided any satisfactory explanation nor having explained day-to-day delay in filing the O.A., the Misc. Application was liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, the application seeking condonation of delay was rejected and the O.A. was dismissed as time barred. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has made submissions that since an appeal was filed by the petitioner in the year 2012 against the order of termination and the same was not decided, the O.A. was filed in 2015 and there was not much delay as such. Further submission has been made that the department never served the order of removal upon the petitioner and it was only when the same was served upon him pursuant to the application moved under the Right to Information Act, steps were taken by him to challenge the same and, therefore, the delay, if any, was liable to be condoned. 6. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents has supported the order impugned and submission has been made that once the petitioner was not permitted to work since after the order of termination was passed in 2002, alleged filing of the appeal in 2012 or the O.A. in 2015 with inordinate delay would be fatal to his claim and the Tribunal has rightly rejected the application. 7. We have considered the submissions made and have perused the material available on record. 8. Admittedly, the services of the petitioner were terminated in the year 2002 and, thereafter, he was not allowed to work. Therefore, it cannot be accepted that the petitioner was not aware of termination of his services. In the affidavit seeking condonation of delay, though a plea was raised WRIA No. 15020 of 2026 2 that an appeal was filed by the petitioner in 2012, it has come in the order of the Tribunal that no such document was filed in support of the said plea. Even if we assume that an appeal was filed in 2012 and the same was pending in 2015 when the O.A. was filed, the petitioner did not seek any relief qua the appeal or its expeditious disposal, rather, he directly challenged the order dated 06.02.2002 before the Tribunal and, therefore, the period of limitation having been computed form that date, the O.A. was rightly treated as 13 years barred by limitation. 9. The explanation offered in the application seeking condonation of delay being wholly unacceptable in the facts of the case, we are of the view that the Tribunal has rightly rejected the application by following the ratio laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Chennai Metro Politan Water Supply & Sewerage Borad (supra) and Pashupati Subba Reddy (supra). 10. In view of the above discussion, we do not find any good ground to interfere with the order passed by the Tribunal. 11. The writ petition has no substance; the same is, therefore, dismissed. September 18, 2026 Sazia WRIA No. 15020 of 2026 3 (Kshitij Shailendra, J.) (Arun Bhansali, CJ.) Digitally signed by :- SAZIA AQUIL High Court of Judicature at Allahabad