State Of Jammu & Kashmir @APPELLANT@Hash Manoj Kumar

The applicant/petitioner has filed the instant application seeking condonation of 157 days delay in filing the Criminal Acquittal Appeal on the ground that the applicant/petitioner has a strong prima facie case in his favour and is also sure to succeed on merit. It is further stated that the contents of Acquittal Appeal be read over and treated as part and parcel of the present application also in order to avoid repetition. The judgment was passed on 11.05.2013. The matter was examined and forwarded to the Government for filing of the appeal. Since the above matter has to go through of different levels as such it had taken some time. Subsequently the above matter was again considered at the administrative level and sanction for filing of appeal was issued by the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs vide Government Order No.3980-LD(ACQ) of 2013 dated 20.11.2013. It is further stated that the counsel for the applicant/petitioner thereafter drafted the above titled appeal and sent to the applicant for signatures. The applicant being the law enforcing agency is duty bound to perform every affair related to the security, law and order and other matters smoothly and took some time to deliver the signed papers back to the counsel for the applicant. The delay in filing the appeal is neither intentional nor deliberate but due to the facts narrated above.

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and perused the record.

From the perusal of impugned judgement, it is evident that accused has been acquitted on 11.05.2013; sanction for filing appeal has been granted on 20.11.2013, after about six months. But present petition has been filed on 28.04.2014, after five months; so total delay in filing the appeal is 157 days.

Rules of limitation are prima facie rules of procedure and do not create any rights in favour of any person nor do they define or create cause of action but simply prescribe that the remedy could be exercised only upto a certain period and not beyond it. The expression 'sufficient cause' is not to be liberally construed to such an extent that the rules are rendered in consequential and reduced to a 'dead provision' on the State book. The Rules of Limitation are not superfluous or vestigial but are to be interpreted in a meaningful manner so as to save the system from anarchy. Why should there be a time frame prescribed under law for a legal remedy? Law of Limitation fixes a life span for every legal remedy. Time is precious and the wasted time would never resist. So, a life span must be fixed for each remedy. Unending period for launching the remedy may lead of ending uncertainty and consequential anarchy. It is enshrined in maxim, "Interests reipublicae up sit finis litium (It is for the general welfare that a period be put to litigant). Every legal remedy must be kept alive for legislatively fixed period of time. The Rules of Limitation are not superfluous or vestigial but are to be interpreted in a meaningful manner, so as to save the system from anarchy. Although certain latitude must be given state in filing appeal that does not mean that law of limitation in filing the appeal shall be become redundant or superfluous. Law is also clear each day after limitation time, is required to be explained by cogent means. It cannot be set aside on flimsy grounds and at the wish of applicant who remained all along negligent.

In present case, so far as the averments made in the application are concerned, it may be said that the application has been drafted in a most casual manner and absolutely no details have been given for the reasons as to why a delay of 157 days had occurred. Even if this Court wanted to show indulgence to the appellant, being a Government body, it finds it difficult to help the appellant as it has been guilty of gross negligence. No date, on which the different officers dealt with the file, has been given; there is a gross negligence on the part of the department. There is so much of gross negligence on the part of the appellant that even the word 'sufficient cause' has not been used by them in the application. After the expiry of period of limitation a vested right is created in a party which cannot be defeated easily.

Applicant has miserably failed to satisfy the court with regard to delay in filing the application seeking leave to appeal. Even after getting the permission from Law department to file petition on 20.11.2013, the State remained silent for about five months in filing the present petition and filed present application on flimsy grounds. Court cannot come to rescue of a litigant who always remained careless. No sufficient grounds have been shown for condoning the delay.

Accordingly, the application seeking condonation of delay is dismissed and resultantly the application seeking leave to file appeal is also dismissed as barred by time.