ORAL JUDGMENT

The present appeal is accompanied with I.A.

No.2/2022 to condone the delay of 576 days in preferring the appeal. The grounds urged in the affidavit accompanying I.A. No.2/2022 is at para No.5 which is culled out as under:

“5. I state that after the judgment was passed by the 1st Appellate Court due to ongoing pandemic I could not keep in contact with my advocate and was under the impression that appeal may take some time for disposal. And after coming to know about the disposal of the case I have immediately contact my advocate and took all the necessary documents and preferred this appeal. As I could not keep the track of my case due to personal and on-going pandemic there is some delay in filing this appeal which is neither intentional nor deliberate.”

2. The reasons stated to condone the delay of 576 days in preferring the appeal is that the judgment was passed by the First Appellate Court during the Covid-19 Pandemic and he could not contact his counsel and he was under the impression that the appeal may take some time for disposal and after coming to know about the disposal of the case, immediately he contacted his counsel, made necessary arrangements and delay is c