IMPORTANT POINT
If sufficient cause is not proved, application for condonation has to be dismissed on that ground alone.

Ajit Bharihoke, Presiding Member—This revision has been filed against the order of the State Commission, Madhya Pradesh dated 12.1.2016 vide which the State Commission partly allowed the appeal of the respondent/complainant and directed the petitioner/opposite party to pay to the complainant a sum of Rs.5,000/- as compensation besides the cost of litigation Rs.3,000/-.

2. The opposite party instead of complying with the aforesaid order awarding petty amount of compensation has preferred to file this revision petition. The revision petition, however, has been filed after the expiry of 30 days period of limitation with a delay of 132 days as per the petitioner (136 days as per the computation done by the Registry). The petitioner has therefore moved IA/8344/2016 seeking condonation of delay. Only explanation for delay given in the application is bureaucratic/administrative delays in seeking permission to file the revision petition. Aforesaid explanation to our mind is not satisfactory.

3. Hon’ble Supreme Court in Post Master General and others vs. Living Media India Ltd. and another (2012) 3 Supreme Court Cases 563 has held:

“24. After referring various earlier decisions, taking very lenient view in condoning the delay, particularly, on the part of the Government and Government Undertaking, this Court observed as under;

“29. It needs no restatement at our hands that the object for fixing time-limit for litigation is based on public policy fixing a lifespan for legal remedy for the purpose of general welfare. They are meant to see that the parties do not resort to dilatory tactics but avail their legal remedies promptly. Salmond in his Jurisprudence states that the laws come to the assistance of the vigilant and not of the sleepy.

30. Public interest undoubtedly is a paramount consideration in exercising the courts’ discretion wherever conferred upon it by the relevant statutes. Pursuing stale claims and multiplicity of proceedings in no manner subserves public interest. Prompt and timely payment of compensation to the landlosers facilitating their rehabilitation /resettlement is equally an integral part of public policy. Public interest demands that the State or the beneficiary of acquisition, as the case may be, should not be allowed to indulge in any act to unsettle the settled legal rights accrued in law by resorting to avoidable litigation unless the claimants are guilty of deriving benefit to which they are otherwise not entitled, in any fraudulent manner. One should not forget the basic fact that what is acquired is not the land but the livelihood of the landlosers. These public interest parameters ought to be kept in mind by the courts while exercising the discretion dealing with the application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act.Dragging the landlosers to courts of law years after the termination of legal proceedings would not serve any public interest. Settled rights cannot be lightly interfered with by condoning inordinate delay without there being any proper explanation of such delay on the ground of involvement of public revenue. It serves no public interest.”

The Court further observed:

“27. 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.

28. Though we are conscious of the fact that in a matter of condonation of delay when there was no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or lack of bonafide, a liberal concession has to be adopted to advance substanti