The court emphasized the importance of providing credible and sufficient reasons for seeking condonation of delay in filing an appeal.

JUDGMENT

Arun Palli, J. (Oral) - This is an intra-court appeal under clause X of the Letters Patent against an order and judgment dated 19.03.2018, rendered by the learned Single Judge, vide which the writ petition preferred by the appellants had since been dismissed.

2. The facts that are required to be noticed are limited.

3. Respondent No. 3 is M.A. LLB and is a qualified MBA. She was employed as a Human Resource Manager with M/s. Global Fragrances Private Limited. And the appellants happened to be the Directors of the said company. Upon a complaint made by respondent No. 3, under the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (for short, 'the Act'), the Local Complaints Committee, Gurgaon inquired into the matter under Section 13 of the Act, and vide inquiry report dated 08.02.2017, reached a conclusion that the complainant was sexually harassed, and the allegations against the appellants were duly proved. Accordingly, the Committee in terms of Section 15 of the Act assessed the compensation the complainant was entitled to and made its recommendations to the District Officer for further action. Being aggrieved by the recommendations/order of the Local Complaints Committee, the appellants filed an appeal under Section 18 before the appellate authority constituted under the Act. Further, for the appeal filed by the appellants was time barred it was accompanied with an application seeking condonation of delay. However, as the appellate authority found that the appeal preferred by the appellants was hopelessly barred by time and the explanation rendered seeking condonation of delay hardly constituted any sufficient cause, vide order dated 19.02.2018, dismissed the said application and consequently the appeal. That is how, as indicated above, the appellants approached this Court vide a writ petition which has since been dismissed.

4. We have heard learned counsel for the appellants and perused the record.

5. Although the only question that is materially and substantially in issue is: if the delay that had occurred in filing the appeal ought to have been condoned or the appellate authority was justified in dismissing the appeal being time barred, but a reference to certain observations recorded by the Local Complaints Committee in its report are inevitable:

"9. Respondent Somesh Chaudhary, Anil Prashar and Manu Prakash were summoned time and again from 15.07.2016 to 25.11.2016 but they did not appear for a single time before the committee. Somesh Chaudhary, appeared on 26.10.2016 but refused to accept the copy of complaint. He did not send anybody to cooperate with the Committee for investigation alongwith his authority letter. V.P. Shukla, by saying himself to be the relative tried to misguide the Committee by asking for time and assuring the Committee about presence of respondents. Hence, the Committee decided to initiate ex-parte proceedings as per the provisions of Sub-Section 5, Section 7 of SHWW Act, 2013."

6. Ex facie, the appellants were repeatedly served and summoned on different occasions by the Local Complaints Committee while the matter was being inquired into, but they did not choose to appear in the proceedings. Accordingly, they were proceeded against ex parte. Concedely, in terms of Section 18 of the Act, an appeal against the order/recommendations of the Local Complaints Committee could be filed within a period of 90 days, whereas the appeal filed by the appellants was barred by 285 days. The explanation rendered by the appellants in the application seeking condonation of delay reads thus:

"1. That appellants have sent the present matter before the High Court lawyer but the High Court lawyer was also not aware about the appellate authority and he kept the matter with him for long period of time so therefore the present appeal was not filed by the appellants.

2. However, after the verification it came to the knowledge that the appellate authority aga