The State must provide satisfactory reasons for delay in filing petitions; bureaucratic inefficiency is no excuse. Condonation of delay should not undermine the principles of timely justice.

JUDGMENT :

Vivek Kumar Singh, J.

Re: Delay Condonation Application No.1 of 2025 in Civil Misc. Review Petition

1. Heard Shri Mohan Srivastava, learned Standing Counsel for the Applicants and Shri R.K. Ojha, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Shri Santosh Kumar Pandey, learned counsel for the opposite party.

2. By means of this review application, the State of U.P. seeks review of the judgment and order dated 13.11.2009 passed by this Court in Writ Petition (C) No.34974 of 2001 (Mohan Lal vs. State of U.P. and Another), whereby the writ petition was allowed in favour of the petitioner.

3. There is a delay of 5743 days in filing the review application from the date of judgment under review herein.

4. The judgment and order dated 13.11.2009, which is under review before us, was earlier challenged by the State of U.P. by filing Special Leave Petition (C) No.25032 of 2014 with a delay of 1633 days and the same was dismissed on the ground of delay as well as on merit by Hon'ble Supreme Court vide its order dated 03.05.2024. Thus, from the date, Special Leave Petition was dismissed, there is a delay of about 489 days in preferring the Review Petition. The Writ (C) No.34974 of 2009 was filed by Mohan Lal against State of U.P. wherein it was prayed that a Writ of Mandamus be issued against the Respondents and direct the Respondent no.2 to omit the name of State of Uttar Pradesh from the revenue records and mutate the name of the petitioner in the revenue records in place of State of Uttar Pradesh. After hearing both sides, this Court allowed the Writ Petition vide judgment and order dated 13.11.2009 and it was held that the petitioner was entitled to the benefit of Section 3 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Repeal Act, 1999 (in short 'Repeal Act') and his land shall not be treated to have been declared as vacant land under the Repeal Act.

5. As noted above against the judgment and order dated 13.11.2009, which is under challenge in the Review Petition, the State of U.P. had filed Special Leave Petition No.25032 of 2014, which was dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court vide order dated 03.05.2024 and the case on merit was also considered in paragraph 2.2 of the order dated 03.05.2024, however, in operative part of aforesaid order, the huge delay of 1633 days in filing the petition was not condoned by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. The Hon'ble Supreme Court further observed that to explain the delay in filing the petition, only plea taken by the State was that the matter was entrusted to the counsel and the same reasoning cannot be accepted. The case was not followed up at any stage.

6. In the affidavit filed by the Review Petitioners-State, certain explanation has been given for such huge delay in preferring this Review Petition. However, on consideration of the averments made in the application seeking condonation of delay and the affidavit filed in support thereof, what we find is that the delay has not been satisfactorily explained, rather in the facts of the case what we conclude is that there has been unjustifiable laches and callousness on the part of the State in preferring this Review Petition. It has been stated in the application seeking condonation of delay that the order dated 13.11.2009, which is under review, was challenged before the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Special Leave Petition No.25032 of 2014, which was dismissed on the ground of delay by the Hon'ble Apex Court vide order dated 03.05.2024. It has not been made clear by the Review Petitioners-State as to what prevented them to file the Review Petition after