The main legal point established in the judgment is the need for a liberal construction of 'sufficient cause' under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, the inapplicability of Section 14 to appeals, and the responsibility of the court in providing correct information to litigants.

This Civil Miscellaneous Petition is, in a sense, a simple proceeding seeking condonation of the delay in filing an appeal by the State against an award by the Sub Court of enhanced compensation in land acquisition proceeding. But questions of some importance have been raised by counsel for the respondent who contends that no special treatment should be accorded to the State as a litigant and, if treated on a par with a private party, the merits of the case cannot justify the court absolving the appellant from the sin of delay.

2. The judgment and decree in L.A.R. No.95 of 1965 on the file of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Mavelikara, were passed on 7-4-1967. The State was aggrieved by this decree and applied for copies for filing an appeal. The Court to which the appeal lay was the High Court as has now been decided by a Full Bench of this Court in a case reported in ILR (1969) 1 Ker 227 : (AIR 1970 Ker 30) (FB) but on a misapprehension about the correct forum, the appeal was actually filed in the District Court at Mavelikara as A.S. No.123 of 1967 on 16-8-1967. Later, that court returned the appeal for re-presentation to the High Court on 27-6-1969 and in the order of return a period of one month was granted for presentation to the proper court. Before expiry of this period, the appeal was re-presented in this Court on 19-7-1969 The last date for filing the appeal to this court was 17-10-1967 and since it was actually instituted only on 19-7-1969 this long span of nearly two years was sought to be bridged by the petition for condonation of the delay.

3. The petitioner stated that he was entitled to exclusion of the period between 16-8-1967 and 27-6-1969 during which the appeal had been pending before the District Court at Mavelikara and that he was also entitled to tack on one month, which the District Court had granted to him for presentation to the proper court. If these exclusions were allowed, the arithmetic is in favour of the appellant and he will be in time; but counsel for the respondent strenuously contended that the appellant had no justification for filing the appeal in the District Court since the provision of law in the Travancore Land Acquisition Act was plain enough that the appeal lay to the High Court. He also urged that even assuming that on account of uncertainty of the law the appeal had been filed in the District Court under a bona fide mistake, there was no valid ground for not instituting it in the High Court immediately on its return by the District Court.

The point counsel took was that the period of grace of one month given to the appellant by the District Court was without jurisdiction, that the appellant was bound to present the appeal in the High Court, without reference to any such invalid judicial extension of Limitation. If, therefore, the period of one month was not allowable, the appellant should have re-presented the appeal shortly after 27-6-1969. Indeed, the papers, even on the showing of the appellant, had reached the Advocate General's Office on 8-7-1969. Since every day's delay had to be explained, there was none for the gap between 8-7-1969 and 19-7-1969 when the appeal found its way into the office of the High Court.

Counsel for the respondent has taken an additional point that the Full Bench decision of this court had been rendered as early as 17th January, 1969 and the State itself was a party to it. Therefore, the appellant had knowledge of the fact that these appeals lay not to the District Court but to the High Court direct and any deay in getting a return of the appeal from the District Court thereafter could not be said to be bona fide within the meaning of Section 14 of the Limitation Act and would not be sufficient cause within the meaning of Section 5 of the Limitation Act. All the delay after January 1969 and, at any rate, after March-April 1969, when all the law reports of Kerala had carried the above decision, - it being assumed for the purpose of this argument that