"We Don't Find Sufficient Cause": SC Refuses To Condone Delay Of 1633 Days In Filing SLP By State Of UP

The Court held thus after an application was also filed seeking condonation of delay of 1,633 days in filing the petition which was filed to challenge the impugned order passed by the Division bench of the High Court.

The bench of Justice C.T. Ravikumar and Justice Rajesh Bindal observed, “The explanation given for seeking condonation of huge delay of 1,633 days cannot be accepted, when it is not disputed that the petitioner-State appeared before the High Court and was heard before passing of the impugned order, so it was within their knowledge.”

The Court perused the application filed by the petitioner-State seeking condonation of a huge delay of 1,633 days in filing the petition shows that to challenge the impugned order passed by the High Court the file was put up before the Competent Authority, Bareilly on which the Competent Authority directed to seek legal opinion from the District Government Counsel.

The Court noted that after receiving the legal opinion from DGC permission was sought from the State Government which was granted and received by the petitioner.

According to the Court, thereafter to explain the delay in filing the petition, the only plea taken was that the matter was entrusted to the counsel. However, the Court later found that initially the appeal was not filed.

The Court stated that it is evident from the application that the case was not properly followed up at any stage.

The Court noticed that the petitioner-State at page ‘K’ of the Synopsis and List of Dates has referred to Special Leave Petition (Civil)....CC....No.21120 of 2013 titled as ‘State of U.P. & others v. Vinod Kumar Tripathi & others’ stating therein that in the aforesaid petition identical issue was involved and this Court after condoning the delay had issued notice and the matter is still pending. However, the actual cause title of the Special Leave Petition (Civil)....CC....No.21120 of 2013 is ‘State of U.P. and others v. Sanjay Kumar and another’.

According to the Court, from a bare perusal of the order passed in the aforesaid petition annexed with the petition, it is evident that the aforesaid petition was dismissed on account of delay and merits. Hence as per the Court, the statement was wrong and misleading.

The petitioner-state in his petition had mentioned in its ground that in an identical case involving the same question of law, the petitioner-state had preferred S.L.P.(C)...CC...No.21595 of 2013 titled as ‘State of U.P. & Anr. vs Vinod Kumar Tripathi & Ors. in which this Court had issued notice, and the matter is still pending adjudication before this Court. However, according to the Court, the same was also dismissed by the Court.

Finally, the Court stated that it did not find sufficient cause to condone the huge delay of 1,633 days in filing the present petition.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed the application for condonation of delay. The Special Leave Petition was also dismissed.

Cause Title: State of U.P. v. Mohan Lal (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 375)

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