Sanoj Halder vs Ashok Sona Mukherjee

The petitioner is a defendant in an eviction suit. By virtue of the impugned order, an application filed by the petitioner for condonation of delay in filing

a petition under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 was rejected on contest, thereby declaring the petition under Section

7(2) of the said Act to be redundant. It appears that the petitioner made out, in his condonation application, several grounds for delay, including illness

over a particular period and wrong legal advice.

While passing the impugned order, the trial court adopted a hyper-technical approach in picking out minor discrepancies and magnifying those, and

ultimately, rejecting the application for condonation of delay. Forgetting the name of his doctor by the petitioner and not marking the medical certificate

as exhibit, by producing the doctor as witness, have been factored in in such exercise.

Undoubtedly, certain minor discrepancies are there in the application for condonation of delay, as well as in the evidence led by the petitioner.

However, it appears that the petitioner is a daily labour, who, on a pragmatic approach, might have suffered due to the causes, as stated in the

application for condonation of delay. As rightly pointed out by learned advocate for the opposite party, the language used in the application for

condonation is unhappy, which at best, is an indictor of the level of legal help that the petitioner could seek in his circumstances.

The court cannot be blind to the social context altogether in the process adjudication. Liberal approach has to be taken by court while adjudicating an

application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act. If the circumstances of the present case are taken into consideration and an element of credibility is

attached to the contentions of the petitioner, the apparent laches of the petitioner could not be elevated to such an extent that mala fides could be

imputed to the petitioner.

As such, the impugned order rejecting the application for condonation of delay suffers from jurisdictional error, primarily for adoption of erroneous

legal principles. Accordingly, C.O. No. 4352 of 2016 is allowed on contest, thereby setting aside the impugned order dated August 12, 2016 passed by

the Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division) at Sealdah in Ejectment Suit No. 55 of 2014 and allowing the application filed by the petitioner under

Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay in filing the application under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997.

The trial Court will now take up the hearing of the application under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 and dispose of the

same as expeditiously as possible, without granting any unnecessary adjournment to either side, preferably within two months from the date of

communication of this order to the court below. There will be no order as to costs. Urgent certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be

made available to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities.