Collectors application to condone delay of 222 days in filing application to set aside abatement allowed.

.1. Muthusamy. On 27. 1993, the matter was posted for taking steps to bring his legal representatives on record. However, the respondent not having taken steps, the suit was dismissed on that day as being abated. On 4. 1994, the respondent filed an application I.A.No.161 of 1997 to condone the alleged delay of 222 days in seeking to set aside the abatement caused by the death of the said Muthusamy. In the affidavit in support of the application for condonation of delay, it was stated as follows:

.“The said Muthusamy had died on 19. 1989 and the case was posted on 27. 1993 for impleading the legal representatives of the deceased/sole defendant as additional defendants in the case and since no petition to implead the legal representatives of the deceased defendant had been filed on 27. 1993, the suit was dismissed observing that on the death of the defendant Muthusamy, the suit stood abated.”

2. The further case in the affidavit was that the respondent could not collect the necessary details about the legal representatives of the deceased/sole defendant in time, which had also consumed such time. It was stated that the Collector was also confronted with flood relief and other related matters which required undivided attention to the affected families and helpless persons and that the dismissal of the suit would cause hardship and loss to the State and that non-filing of the application in time was neither wilful nor wanton or deliberate, and that was solely beyond the control of the respondent.

.3. Theapplication was opposed by the revision petitioners contending inter alia as follows:

Suit against a dead man was illegal, invalid and not maintainable under law. The averments in the affidavit were not true. The number of days’ calculated was not correct. There was a delay of four years inasmuch as the deceased a famous businessman in Nagercoil Town owning Muthu Theatre and other institutions and the Collectors Office had given name and licence transfer for all his concerns in the year 1989 itself, the year of his death, and therefore, the State could not placed ignorance of the names of his legal representatives.

4. The learned Subordinate Judge relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Karuppaswamy v. Ramamurthy A.I.R. 1993 S.C. 2324 and held that because there was delay in obtaining the details of the heirs, the application could not be filed in time and the delay having been properly explained, the same had to be condoned. It is as against this order of condonation, the present civil revision petition has been filed.

5. Mrs.Ammu Balachandran, learned counsel for the revision petitioners, who are the heirs of the deceased Muthusamy, vehemently contended that the respondent/State knew about the death of Muthusamy even in the year 1989, that there were other matters in which the details regarding the heirs of the deceased were available with the State and in fact, the State represented by the Collector had acted on these details and granted transfer to the heirs in respect of the theatres and other institutions owned by the deceased Muthusamy. According to the learned counsel, the reliance placed by the respondent/State on the decision of the Supreme Court in Karuppaswamy v. Ramamurthy A.I.R. 1993 S.C. 2324 was ill-founded.

6. Per contra, the learned Government Advocate submitted that as soon as details were available, the respondent/State took immediate steps to bring the legal representatives on record and some amount of latitude in this case, where the State was involved as a party, was necessary. The learned Government Advocate placed considerable reliance on the decision of the Supreme Court already referred to.

7. In the decision of the Supreme Court, there was material to show that the State, in that case, knew about the death of the other party only from the endorsement made in the summons sent by the court and immediately thereafter, details were gathered and steps were taken to bring the legal rep