The court has the power to condone the delay in filing an appeal if there is sufficient cause for the same.

1. This second appeal is by the plaintiffs. The appeal arose out of a suit under S.30 of the Land Acquisition act. The appeal of the appellants was dismissed by the court of appeal below on the ground of limitation only. There has been no decision on merit.

2. Learned Counsel for the appellants contended that the court of appeal below erred in law in holding the appeal to be time barred. He further submitted that even if the appeal was barred by time it was incumbent upon the appellate court to afford an opportunity to the appellants to mend the matters to avoid miscarriage of justice, the circumstance being an explainable one. Mr. Thakur Prasad, on the other hand, submitted that the appeal filed was incompetent, as it was filed without a copy of the decree, which was drawn up earlier. He further contended that merely because the court granted time to file copy of the decree, that will not extend the period of limitation.

3. In order to appreciate the rival contentions few dates have to be stated.

4. On 5-5-1980 the trial court rendered the judgment and decree is said to have been drawn up on 15-5-1980. On 28-5-80 the appellants claimed to have applied for a copy of the judgment and decree. But on the same date they were granted only copy of the judgment. The appellants filed the appeal on 5-6-1980 along with a petition that the office had reported the decree not to be ready, therefore, the memorandum of appeal was not being accompanied by a copy of the decree. Having not received a copy of the decree even thereafter the plaintiffs again applied for a copy of the decree on 20-6-1980, which was made available on 7-7-1980 and on the same date the copy of the decree was filed. In support of the fact that the appellants applied for the copy of the judgment and decree on 28-5-80 a certified copy of the register maintained by the Copying Department of the relevant date was produced before me, wherefrom it appeared that an application for copy of the judgment and decree was made on 28-5-1980.

5. When the memorandum of appeal was filed without copy of the decree, the lower appellate court did not return the memo on 5-6-80 as it was not in consonance with the requirement of O.41 R.1, but the said memo was entertained and the appeal was admitted on 7-7-1980 when a copy of the decree was filed. The objection as to limitation was raised when the appeal was taken up for hearing on merit.

6. The court of appeal below relying on large number of cases of different High Courts held on interpretation of O.41 R.1 of the Civil P.C. that an appeal filed without being accompanied by copy of decree is an incompetent one. It further held that the appeal became competent only when the certified copy of the decree was filed, i.e. on 7-7-1980, on which date period of thirty days for filing of the appeal had long expired. There having been no petition of condonation of delay under S.5 of the Limitation Act, the court of appeal below dismissed the appeal as being time-barred.

7. Having heard the learned Counsel for the parties I am of the opinion that the court below committed grave error of law in dismissing the appeal on the ground of limitation. My reason therefor, is court-below"s failure to refer to the application for grant of copy of the judgment and the decree together within the period of limitation i.e. on 28-5-1980. The court below ought to have verified the assertion of the petitioner as to whether on 28-5-1980 an application for a certified copy of the judgment and decree was actually made or not and whether the appellant was only given a certified copy of the judgment and not of the decree. If it is a fact that on 28-5-1980 the appellant applied both for the certified copy of the judgment and the decree and the office only issued the certified copy of the judgment, in that event, the appellants cannot be held guilty of any laches whatsoever. No one can be made to suffer for negligence and/or omission of an act of a court or by its of