IMPORTANT POINT
Procedural laws should not be construed as penal provisions to punish the parities as far as possible. Application for condonation of delay should be considered liberally.

JUDGMENT

Abhay Manohar Sapre, J.

1) Leave granted.

2) This appeal is directed against the final judgment and order dated 18.07.2017 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Civil Application No.120 of 2016 in Rejected Case No.149 of 2016 in Rejected Case No.148 of 2016 whereby the Single Judge of the High Court dismissed the appellants’ application on the ground of delay.

3) In order to appreciate the short question involved in the appeal, few facts need mention infra.

4) The appellants herein were the Writ/Review Petitioners before the High Court in the proceedings out of which this appeal arises. On 28.08.2012, the appellants filed a petition being Writ Petition No.8516 of 2012 before the High Court of Bombay questioning therein the legality and correctness of the order dated 14.05.2012 passed by the State Minister for Revenue (MH). It was in relation to a certain land dispute whereby the appellants’ revision application was dismissed.

5) On 27.11.2012, the Single Judge of the High Court dismissed the appellants’ writ petition. The appellants felt aggrieved and filed intra court appeal (L.P.A.No.33 of 2013) before the Division Bench.

6) By order dated 22.03.2014, the Division Bench permitted the appellants to withdraw the intra court appeal and granted them liberty to file review petition before the Single Judge against the order by which their writ petition was dismissed.

7) The appellants accordingly filed review application (Review Application No.3330/2015 in W.P.No.8516/2012) on 17.04.2014. The appellants also filed application for condonation of delay in filing the Review application.

8) According to the Registry of the High Court, the Review Application had some defects in its filing. The appellants were, therefore, directed to cure the defects so that the Review Application could be listed for orders before the appropriate Bench.

9) As the appellants did not cure the defects pointed out by the Registry of the High Court, the Review Application was listed before the Registrar (Judicial-1) on 19.10.2015 for passing appropriate orders in filing the Review Application.

10) The Registrar, by his order dated 19.10.2015 further granted four weeks’ time to the appellants to cure the defects and at the same time directed that failing to cure the defects will result in refusing the registration of the Review Application, i.e., it will result in rejection of the Review application.

11) Felt aggrieved by the order dated 19.10.2015 passed by the Registrar, the appellants filed an application being Civil Application No.120 of 2016 and prayed therein for setting aside of the order dated 19.10.2015 passed by the Registrar and for restoration of Review Application No. St. 3330 of 2015, which was dismissed due to non-compliance of the Registrar's mandatory order dated 19.10.2015.

12) By impugned order, the Single Judge dismissed the appellants’ application essentially on the ground of delay, which has given rise to filing of the present appeal by way of special leave by the Writ/Review petitioners in this Court.

13) On 05.03.2018, we requested Ms. Deepa M. Kulkarni, learned counsel for the State of Maharashtra, who was present in Court, to accept notice on behalf of the Respondent-State to enable us to dispose of the appeal finally on that day having regard to the short issue involved in the appeal. Learned counsel, on our request, accepted the notice on behalf of the respondent-State.

14) Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and on perusal of the record of the case, we are inclined to allow the appeal and while setting aside of the impugned order, we restore the review Application No. (St. 3330/2015) for its hearing by the appropriate Bench in accordance with law.

15) Paras 8, 12 and 13 of the impugned order, which deal with the issue, read as under:

“8. In Review Petition, office raised objections on 14th July, 2015. On 1st June, 2015 as the Applicants failed to remove all office objections, Section Officer ma