The Appellate Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act cannot condone delays beyond 120 days for filing appeals, and strict compliance with deposit requirements is mandatory.

JUDGMENT :

GIRISH KATHPALIA, J.

1. The legal and factual matrix in the captioned petitions being the same, the petitions are taken up together for disposal. By way of these petitions, brought under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, orders dated 29.07.2024 passed by the Appellate Authority under Section 7(7) of the Payment of Gratuity Act have been assailed. By way of the impugned orders dated 29.07.2024, the appeals filed by the petitioner under Section 7(7) of the Act were dismissed on two grounds viz. bar of limitation and failure to deposit the awarded amount. Having heard learned counsel for petitioner at length, I am unable to find it a fit case to even issue notice.

2. Briefly stated, the circumstances leading to these petitions are as follows. Vide orders dated 06.03.2023, the Controlling Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act allowed the claim applications filed by the present respondents. The petitioner filed appeals dated 14.05.2024, received in the appellate authority on 04.07.2024. The appeals being clearly time barred, the learned Appellate Authority examined the issue of limitation in detail. The only explanation for delay in filing those appeals was the time spent in obtaining legal opinion. After traversing through various judicial precedents dealing with the scope of proviso to Section 7(7) of the Act, the learned Appellate Authority held these not to be fit cases to condone the delay, as the authority has no power to condone the delay beyond 120 days in filing the appeal under Section 7(7) of the Act. Besides, the Appellate Authority also found it fit to dismiss the appeals because, the present petitioner had not deposited the amounts awarded by the Controlling Authority in terms of Section 7(4) of the Act. Hence, the present petitions.

3. Learned counsel for petitioner contends that the impugned orders are not sustainable in the eyes of law as these are fit cases to condone the delay in filing the appeals. Learned counsel for petitioner also argues that these are the cases of faulty computation of the awarded amounts and if the appeals are not heard on merits, it would have wide ramifications. Further, learned counsel for petitioner contends that the delay beyond 120 days also can be condoned by atleast this Court, if not by the Appellate Authority. In this regard, learned counsel for petitioner places reliance on the judgment of a co-ordinate bench of this Court in the case titled Union of India vs Ramesh Chand, 2021:DHC:1978 and order dated 25.03.2022 of a co- ordinate bench of this Court in the case titled Public Works Department vs Nanji Lal & Anr., WP(C) 4912/2022.

4. For convenience, the provision under Section 7(7) of the Act is extracted below:

“(7) Any person aggrieved by an order under sub-section (4) may, within sixty days from the date of the receipt of the order, prefer an appeal to the appropriate Government or such other authority as may be specified by the appropriate Government in this behalf:

Provided that the appropriate Government or the appellate authority, as the case may be, may, if it is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from preferring the appeal within the said period of sixty days, extend the said period by a further period of sixty days.

Provided further that no appeal by an employer shall be admitted unless at the time of preferring the appeal, the appellant either produces a certificate of the controlling authority to the effect that the appellant has deposited with him an amount equal to the amount of gratuity required to be deposited under subsection (4), or deposits with the appellate authority such amount.”

Clearly, the legislature in its wisdom decided to impose two pre conditions in order to grant admission of the appeals under Section 7(7) of the Act, stipulating that the appellant by the time of institution of the appeal had deposited the impugned amount of gratuity with the Controlling Authority or with the Appellate Authority; and that