Courts cannot adopt a liberal approach to condone inordinate and unjustified delays caused by a party's own negligence, especially when the party was represented by counsel and failed to provide a bona fide explanation for the inaction.

Judgment On Board

1) Heard on I.A. No. 2/2025, an application for condonation of delay in filing the appeal.

2) The appellant/owner-cum-driver has filed the instant appeal before this Hon’ble Court against the judgment and award dated 13.01.2022 (Annexure A-1) passed in Claim Case No. 13/2020 by the learned Additional Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Bhanupratappur, District North Bastar, Kanker (C.G.) whereby compensation of Rs. 5,30,000/- has been awarded with interest @ 9% p.a. on account of death of Harjeet Singh to the claimant/respondent No.1 (mother of deceased).

3) With regard to the application for condonation of delay, the learned counsel for the appellant/owner-cum-driver submits that there is a delay of 874 days in filing the instant appeal. He contends that the appellant was not aware of the proceedings and law of limitation and when he approached the local counsel, he was advised to file Misc. Appeal. Thereafter, applied certified copy of award as well as other documents and after receiving the same, he has preferred this Misc. Appeal. He prays to condone the delay.

4) Heard learned counsel for the appellant/driver.

5) Perusal of the award would show that appellant/owner-cum-driver represented through a counsel. The award was passed on 13.01.2022 and thereafter, no steps were taken by the appellant to prefer the appeal within limitation.

6) In the application for condonation of delay, it is stated that appellant was unaware of proceedings whereas perusal of record would show that the appellant was represented by a counsel before the Tribunal, thus reason assigned cannot be accepted. Also, appellant has not explained the delay from 13.01.2022 till 03.09.2024.

7) It seems that the appellant remained inactive for period of 874 days, which suggests a lack of diligence in pursuing the case. Given the substantial delay of 874 days, the appellant has not provided sufficient justification for the inaction.

8) Recently, Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of H. Guruswamy & Ors. Versus A. Krishnaiah Since Deceased by Lrs., 1. [2025] 1 SCR 764 held courts cannot use a "liberal approach" to condone inordinate, unjustified delays caused by a party's own negligence. Relevant paras of the aforesaid judgment are reproduced herein below :-

13. We are at our wits end to understand why the High Court overlooked all the aforesaid aspects. What was the good reason for the High Court to ignore all this? Time and again, the Supreme Court has reminded the District judiciary as well the High courts that the concepts such as "liberal approach", "Justice oriented approach", "substantial justice" should not be employed to frustrate or jettison the substantial law of limitation.

16. The length of the delay is definitely a relevant matter which the court must take into consideration while considering whether the delay should be condoned or not. From the tenor of the approach of the respondents herein, it appears that they want to fix their own period of limitation for the purpose of instituting the proceedings for which law has prescribed a period of limitation. Once it is held that a party has lost his right to have the matter considered on merits because of his own inaction for a long, it cannot be presumed to be non-deliberate delay and in such circumstances of the case, he cannot be heard to plead that the substantial justice deserves to be preferred as against the technical