Delay Condonation Application By A Stranger Who Is Not Party To Proceedings Illegal: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court stated that an application for condonation of delay filed by a non-party is illegal.
The Court said that approving such an approach would permit “any Tom, Dick and Harry” to move such an application for restoration of the suit even if they were non-parties to the suit.
The Bench was of the prima facie view that the reasoning given by the trial court as well as the Bombay High Court for condonation of an inordinate delay did not come under the ambit of “sufficient cause.”
Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta observed, “Entertaining an application filed at the behest of a stranger for condonation of delay in filing an application for restoration of the subject suit is totally unsustainable in law. Admittedly, respondent No.1 has not even been impleaded in the subject suit. As such, the application filed at the behest of the stranger, who is not a party to the proceedings, is totally illegal. If the approach as adopted by the trial court is approved, any Tom, Dick and Harry would be permitted to move an application for condonation of delay in filing an application for restoration of the suit even if he is not a party to the subject suit.”
Sr. Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Shyam Divan, and Sonia Mathur represented the appellant, while Sr. Advocates C.A. Sundaram, Dama Seshadri Naidu, Ardenumauli Prasad and Ajit Bhasme appeared for the respondents.
The Government of Maharashtra in 1986 had acquired the subject land for public purpose and handed over the said land for development/execution to the City Industrial Development Corporation, Maharashtra (CIDCO).
In the year 2002, the original plaintiff filed a suit against the Government of Maharashtra CIDCO for the relief of declaration that the said acquisition as illegal, null and void. Following his demise, the legal heirs of the original plaintiff filed an application to condone the delay in adding themselves to the record and submitted another application for bringing the legal heirs of the plaintiff on record in the subject suit.
The trial court after allowing the application for condonation of delay as well as the application for bringing the legal heirs of the plaintiff on record in the subject suit later dismissed the subject suit for want of prosecution.
Conversely, the trial court granted a restoration application filed by a private limited company, purporting to act as the "assignee" from the legal heirs of the plaintiff, thus condoning the delay of 9 years and 11 months. The High Court High Court upheld this order and even enhanced the costs awarded from Rs. 15,000/- to Rs. 1,50,000/-.
The Supreme Court stated that entertaining an application filed at the behest of a stranger for condonation of delay in filing an application for restoration of the subject suit was “totally unsustainable in law.”
“It is difficult to understand as to what was the compelling necessity for the trial court to have entertained the application filed at the behest of respondent No.1 after a period of two years from the date of filing of the application by respondents No.2 and 3,” the Court remarked.
Consequently, the Court held, “We do not appreciate the propriety in keeping the application filed by the legal heirs of the original plaintiff in 2019 pending and deciding the subsequent application filed by respondent No.1 in October 2021 within a period of six months. We do not wish to say anything more on it.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court set aside the orders of both the trial court and the High Court and allowed the appeal.
Cause Title: Vijay Laxman Bhawe (D) v. P & S Nirman Pvt. Ltd. & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 394)
Appearance:
Appellant: Sr. Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Shyam Divan and Sonia Mathur; AOR E. C. Agrawala; Advocates Mahesh Agarwal, Ankur Saigal, Anurag Gharote, Aanchal Mullick, Uday Aditya Banarjee, Kartikeya Desai, S. Lakshmi Iyer, Shashwat Patnaik, Rajesh K. Satpalkar, Divik Mathur and Sukriti Bhatnagar
Respondents: Sr. Advocates C.A. Sundaram, Dama Seshadri Naidu, Ardenumauli Prasad and Ajit Bhasme; AOR Dilip Annasaheb Taur, Shivaji M. Jadhav, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande and Sanjay Kumar Visen; Advocates Amol V. Deshmukh, Anand Dilip Landge, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Preet S. Phanse, Adarsh Dubey, Parth Sarathi and Gyanendra Vikram Singh