Bibek Chaudhuri, J.—Before recording the decision of this Court in respect of the instant appeal on merits, this Court is under obligation to decide the I. A. No. 1 of 2019, which is an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay.

2. It will not be out of place to mention here that the instant appeal was filed along with I. A. No. 1 of 2019. A Coordinate Bench of this Court vide order, dated 23rd of January, 2020, while refusing the prayer for condonation of delay, dismissed both the I. A. No. 1 of 2019 as well as Government Appeal (SJ) 18 of 2019.

3. Against the said order, dated 23rd of January, 2020, the appellant moved before the Supreme Court in Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) Nos. 5068-5069 of 2020.

4. The Hon’ble Supreme Court passed the following order on 19th of July, 2024:—

“Leave granted.

Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we are of the opinion that the High Court should have condoned the delay. The matter required in-depth consideration. Accordingly, we set aside the impugned judgment and direct the High Court to examine whether or not to grant leave to appeal to the State against the impugned judgment dated 25.02.2019. Govt. Appeal (SJ) No. 18/2019 shall accordingly stand revived on the file of the High Court.

We have deliberately refrained from commenting any further, as the matter will have to be heard by the High Court. All pleas and contentions are left open.

Parties shall appear before the High Court on 28.08.2024, when the next date of hearing will be fixed.

The appeals are allowed and disposed of in the above terms.

Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.”

6. On perusal of the above quoted order, it appears that the Hon’ble Supreme Court was of the opinion that the High Court should have condoned the delay and the matter required in-depth consideration. The above observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in my considered view, is in effect that the delay in filing the appeal by 98 days ought to have condoned and the appeal should have heard on merit by way of in-depth consideration. Such observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is in the nature of direction to allow the application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act.

7. This Court in Paragraph No. 14 of the impugned order dated 23rd of January, 2020 held as hereunder:—

“14. From the pleadings in the Interlocutory Application, the Court finds that learned counsel for the Department had sent the memo of appeal along with the limitation petition on 06.05.2019 itself to the Department. Thus, it is clear that even on 06.05.2019, when the matter was found fit for filing of appeal and the prepared memo of appeal as also the limitation petition was sent to the Department on 06.05.2019 and still the same being ultimately filed on 07.08.2019, in the considered opinion of the Court, cannot be casually condoned. There is absolutely no explanation for such delay.”

8. In a very recent decision in the case of Mool Chandra vs. Union of India & Anr., reported in (2025) 1 SCC 625, the Hon’ble Supreme Court referred to an earlier decision in Commr., Nagar Parishad, Bhilwara vs. Labour Court & Anr., reported in (2009) 3 SCC 525 and held that while deciding an application for condonation of delay, it is well settled that the High Court ought not to have gone into the merits of the case and would have only seen whether sufficient cause had been shown by the appellant for condoning the delay in filing the appeal before it. We ourselves have also examined the application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act before the High Court and, in our opinion, the delay of 178 days has been properly explained by the appellant. That being the position, we set aside the impugned order of the High Court. Consequently, the appeal filed before the High Court is restored to its original file. The High Court is requested to decide the appeal on merit in accordance with law after giving hearing to the parties and after passing a reasoned order.

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