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Sri Pal Singh vs. The General Manager, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Pvt. Ltd. & Anr.

Diary No. · 2022 INSC 870Decided 25 Aug 2022
Diary No. 22591 of 2021
Uday Umesh Lalit · Ajay Rastogi

Background

Sri Pal Singh had earlier filed a Special Leave Petition (No. 6380 of 2019) against ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company, which was disposed of by the Supreme Court. He then sought to have that decision reviewed by filing a review petition, but he filed it 888 days late.

Decision Breakdown

The Court examined the application seeking condonation (excuse) of this very long delay and found the explanation offered for the delay "not satisfactory at all." Because the delay was not adequately explained, the Court refused to condone it, and as a direct consequence dismissed the review petition itself without going into its merits.

Lesson Learnt

Courts expect litigants to act promptly; an unexplained or poorly explained delay of this magnitude (here, nearly two and a half years) can be fatal to a review petition regardless of what its underlying merits might have been.

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

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