NEW OKHLA INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Vs. ATAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been field against the order dated 25-7-1997, passed by the III Additional District Judge, Ghaziabad dismissing the application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act in Misc. Case No. 290 of 1995, NOIDA v. Atar Singh, wherein the appeal was preferred against the order of the Prescribed Authority dated 10-8-1986.

(2.) Facts and circumstances giving rise to this case are that petitioner appellant filed an appeal before the learned Additional District Judge against the order of the Prescribed Authority passed under the U.P. Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupant) Act, 1972 (hereinafter called the Act 1972), along with an application for condonation of delay of 21 days. The appeal ought to have been filed reckoning the period of getting the certified copy of this order by 16/08/1995 but it could be filed only on 6th Sept. 1995. The application has been rejected on the ground that no sufficient cause was shown and appellant did not furnish explanation for each day's delay. Hence this petition.

(3.) Shri Rai, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the delay of 21 days occurred because the authority took some time in inter-departmental proceeding. Though expiration of the period of delay had been explained from the last date of filing the appeal till the date of filing the same. More so, being a case of the State within the meaning of Art. 12 of the Constitution as it represented the larger public interest the delay ought to have condoned. The delay occurred because the Chief Legal Adviser of the petitioner had been very busy before this Court as a large number of matters had been listed during that period, and the delay of 21 days was unintentional and ought to have been condoned.