Courts cannot condone inordinate delay in legal proceedings for state institutions based on bureaucratic formalities alone. The law of limitation binds all parties equally, and a demonstrable lack of diligence in pursuing legal remedies precludes the grant of relief for condonation of delay.

JUDGMENT :

1. Counsel for the appellants seeks to withdraw I.A. No.3951 of 2025 with liberty to purse I.A. No.6083 of 2025.

2. Accordingly, I.A. No.6081 of 2025 is allowed for the said prayer.

I.A. No.6083 of 2025:

3. This application is filed by the applicants seeking condonation of delay of 397 days in filing this Letters Patent Appeal challenging the judgment dated 21^st August, 2023 of the learned Single Judge in W.P.(S) No.3011 of 2020.

4. In the application filed seeking condonation of delay, it is stated that the delay was caused due to procedural formalities and there was no wilful omission on the part of the applicants.

5. It is further stated that after receipt of the copy of the judgment, the same was put up on 18^th December, 2023 before the Deputy Director of the applicant-Department for doing the needful; on 3^rd January, 2024, he placed it before the Under Secretary; on 5^th January, 2024, the Under Secretary desired grounds of appeal to be prepared in the matter; the file was then sent to the retainer for preparation of grounds of appeal on 8^th January, 2024; and on 20^th January, 2024 grounds of appeal were drafted and submitted to the Under Secretary.

6. It is next stated that on 24^th January, 2024, grounds of appeal were put up before the Deputy Director for approval and for appointment of Advocate in the matter and he sent it to the Under Secretary for appointment of Advocate. The Under Secretary then sent the file on 5^th February, 2024 to the Director, who then forwarded it to the Principal Secretary of the applicant- Department. Thereafter on 8^th February, 2024, the file was sent to the office of the Advocate General for opinion and he gave an opinion on 9^th February, 2024 to file the appeal and ultimately the appeal was drafted on 14^th May, 2024 and was filed on 30^th July, 2024.

7. Admittedly, the judgment of the learned Single Judge was pronounced on 21^st August, 2023 in W.P.(S) No.3011 of 2020 but application for certified copy of the same was admittedly made on 26^th July, 2024, almost a year later. There is no explanation offered for this delay in applying for certified copy of the judgment of the learned Single Judge. It appears that the applicants though aware that the period of limitation for filing the appeal is only 30 days, have leisurely proceeded in the matter.

8. We are, therefore, satisfied that sufficient cause has not been shown by the applicants for condonation of the inordinate long delay of 397 days in filing the appeal.

9. In Postmaster General and others v. Living Media India Limited and another , reported in (2012) 3 SCC 563, the Supreme Court held:

“25. We have already extracted the reasons as mentioned in the “better affidavit” sworn by Mr Aparajeet Pattanayak, SSRM, Air Mail Sorting Division, New Delhi. It is relevant to note that in the said affidavit, the Department has itself mentioned and is aware of the date of the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court in Office of the Chief Postmaster v. Living Media India Ltd. as 11-9-2009. Even according to the deponent, their counsel had applied for the certified copy of the said judgment only on 8-1-2010 and the same was received by the Department on the very same day. There is no explanation for not applying for the certified copy of the impugned judgment on 11-9-2009 or at least within a reasonable time. The fact remains that the certified copy was applied for only on 8- 1-2010 i.e. after a period of nearly four months.

26. In spite of affording another opportunity to file better affidavit by placing adequate material, neither the Department nor the person-in-charge has filed any explanation for not applying the certified copy within the prescribed peri