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Meerut Kendriya Thok Upbhokta Sahakari Bandar v. Vakil Chand Jain and Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal Nos. 1381-1384 of 2017)Decided 3 Feb 2017
Civil Appeal Nos. 1381-1384 of 2017
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice A.M. Khanwilkar

Background

The appellant had earlier been given liberty by the Supreme Court (order dated 05.08.2016) to file review petitions before the Allahabad High Court against a 2016 judgment in old writ petitions from 1992 and 1997. When the appellant did so, the High Court dismissed both the applications seeking condonation of delay and, consequently, the review petitions themselves for want of prosecution, by order dated 13.01.2017. The appellant challenged that dismissal before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Court condoned the delay in filing the appeal itself and granted leave. On the merits of the appeal, it found that most of the delay in filing the review petitions was attributable to the time spent pursuing the earlier special leave petition before the Supreme Court. To avoid yet another round of litigation over condonation and restoration, the Court set aside the High Court's dismissal-for-default order, restored the condonation applications, condoned the delay in filing the review petitions, and set aside the High Court's orders dismissing those review petitions. It sent the review petitions back to the High Court to be decided on merits, preferably within one month, directed both parties to cooperate without seeking adjournments, ordered status quo to be maintained meanwhile, and expressly clarified it had not expressed any view on the actual merits of the underlying dispute.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will often look past procedural defaults, like delay in filing a review petition, when the delay itself was caused by genuinely pursuing an earlier, related legal remedy, rather than let a litigant's case be shut out on a technicality without ever being heard on its merits.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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