Judgment :-

A.K. Sikri, J.

1. There is a delay of 481 days in filing this Special Leave Petition and by means of present application petitioner seeks condonation thereof. 2. In the application the petitioner has attributed the delay to the moving of file from one Department/ Officer to the other. We hardly find this to be a sufficient explanation for condoning such an abnormal delay. This Court in the case of Postmaster General and Ors. vs. Living Media India Ltd.; (2012) 3 SCC 563 has deprecated such practices on the part of the Government Authorities/ Departments in the following words:-

“It is not in dispute that the person(s) concerned were well aware or conversant with the issues involved including the prescribed period of limitation for taking up the matter by way of filing a Special Leave Petition in this Court. They cannot claim that they have a separate period of limitation when the Department was possessed with competent persons familiar with Court proceedings. In the absence of plausible and acceptable explanation, we are posing a question why the delay is to be condoned mechanically merely because the Government or a wing of the Government is a party before us.

Though we ar