The main legal point established in the judgment is the determination of the crucial date for calculating the limitation period in the context of filing appeals, as governed by the Sikkim High Court (Practice and Procedure) Rules 2011.

ORDER :

Vijai Kumar Bist, J.

This Regular Second Appeal has been filed by the appellants against the judgment dated 31.03.2018 passed by the District Judge, Special Division-II, Sikkim at Gangtok in Title Appeal No. 06 of 2017 – Old Rumtek Monastery & Others versus Lama Karma Dorjee & Others, whereby the first appeal of the appellants/ plaintiffs was partly allowed. Along with the appeal, an application for condonation of delay has also been filed.

2. The office has reported that there is three days delay in filing the appeal. The ground taken by the applicants/ appellants is that the applicant/appellant No. 2 remained ill and the doctor advised him to take rest for one week and as such the applicants/appellants could not file the appeal on the last day i.e. 09.07.2018. The appeal was presented on 11.07.2018 at 04.00 pm and resubmitted on 07.08.2018 at 04.00 pm. The matter was heard on 16.08.2018 and notice was issued to the respondents on condonation of delay application.

3. The respondents appeared and filed objection against the said condonation of delay application. Mr. Jorgay Namka, the learned counsel for the respondents submitted that the Registry has wrongly calculated the delay as three days in filing the memo of appeal. He submitted that in fact there is forty two days delay in filing the memo of appeal. Learned counsel for the respondents submitted that in view of the judgment passed by this Court in the matter of Tara Kumar Pradhan versus Yuba Kr. Pradhan (IA No. 01 of 2016 in RFA No. 16 of 2016), the date of filing will be the date when petition is placed before the Registry, after curing all the defects. In Tara Kumar Pradhan (supra) the coordinate bench of this Court has held as follows: -

“(8) ………… It has been argued that the RFA was initially filed within the period of limitation, i.e. 62, but the defects unearthed by the Registry led to the delay. This, I am afraid is no ground, as an application or RFA cannot be deemed to be filed until all defects are cured. The date of filing will be the date when the petition is placed before the Registry sans defects and not prior to that. ……”

4. While hearing the objection raised by the learned counsel for the respondents, this Court directed the Registry to submit a detailed report in the present matter. The Registry submitted its report in the following manner:

“ RSA No. 2 of 2018

Old Rumtek Monastery & Ors.

Vs.

Lama Karma Dorjee & Ors.

Report of the Stamp Reporter in terms of the order dated 26/11/2018 passed in the above cited Appeal.

The appeal was filed on 11/7/2018. In the certified copy of the impugned judgment, date of the application for certified copy is mentioned as 31/3/2018, and the date when the certified copy was made ready is mentioned as 9/4/2018. Applying the formula prescribed by Hon’ble the then Chief Justice Shri N.K. Jain for computation of delay, number of days delayed has been calculated in the following manner:

1. Date of the impugned judgment, i.e. 31.03.2018

2. Date of application for certified copy: 31.3.2018

3. Date when certified copy was made ready: 09.04.2018

4. Date of filing the appeal: 11.07.2018

5. Limitation period: 90 days

6. Time required for obtaining certified copy: 9 days

7. Limitation period commenced from: 02.04.2018

7. Total number of days delayed in filing the appeal, i.e. from 01.04.2018 to 11.07.2018: 102 days

8. Total number of days delayed – limitation period, i.e. 102-90=12 days

9. Substracting (sic. ‘subtracting’) further the period of 9 days as time requisite for obtaining certified copy=12-9=3 days.

10. Therefore, the total number of days delayed in filing the appeal = 3 days.

Sd/-

27/11/2018

Stamp Reporter”

5. Considered the submissions of learned counsel for the parties.

6. Sikkim High Court (Practice and Procedure) Rules 2011 (hereinafter referred to as “P.P. Rules”) provides procedure regarding Judicial Business. Rule 3 of the P.P. Rules provides that all Petitions/ Appeals/Applications/Counter/Objections etc. to be filed in the High Court