Surendra G. Shankar v. Esque Finamark Pvt. Ltd.
Background
The appellants were flat allottees in the "Lodha Venezia" and "Lodha Azzuro" projects who filed possession complaints against the developer entities before Maharashtra's Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA). RERA dismissed their complaints, and their subsequent appeals to the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai were themselves dismissed as time-barred. When the appellants approached the Bombay High Court, it declined to condone the delay, even while remarking that "in normal circumstances" it would have, and went on to comment on the merits of the underlying orders.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court allowed the appeals on a narrow but important procedural ground: once the High Court itself accepted that the delay ought normally to have been condoned, it should have simply condoned the delay and sent the matter back to the Appellate Tribunal for a decision on merits. It had no business commenting on the merits of the underlying RERA orders at the limitation stage, especially since the Tribunal itself had never examined those merits. The Court set aside both the High Court's order and the Tribunal's refusal to condone delay, condoned the delay, and restored the appeals to the Tribunal for consideration on their own merits, expressing no view on the merits itself.
Lesson Learnt
A court or tribunal deciding only whether to excuse a delay should confine its ruling to that question alone, straying into the merits of the underlying dispute at that stage can prejudice the eventual hearing and is itself a valid ground of appeal.