Failure to act on substitution of legal heirs results in abatement and dismissal of appeals.

1. The present review petition is filed seeking a review of the order dated 19.06.2020 passed in MCC No.1421/2019 : (AIROnLine 2020 MP 831) whereby the application for condonation of delay has been rejected and consequently the MCC filed for restoration of Second Appeal No.217/2004 has also been dismissed.
The facts of the case in short are as under:
The original plaintiff Teju alias Tejmal filed the civil suit for declaration and permanent injunction against the State Government, vide judgment and decree dated 03.12.2001 the suit was decreed in favour of the plaintiff by declaring him owner and occupier of survey No.626 area 4 Beegha, 14 Biswa (101050 sq.ft.) situated in ward No.7 near Amrit Sagar Talab, Ratlam. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid judgment and decree the State of M.P. filed First Appeal No.5 - A / 2003, vide judgment dated 16.10.2003 First Additional District Judge, Fast Track, Ratlam dismissed the appeal.

2. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid dismissal of the appeal, the State of M.P. filed the Second Appeal No.217/2004 before this Court. Vide order dated 01.07.2004, the appeal was admitted on the sole question of law which is as under :
"Have the courts below erred in holding that the respondent acquired rights of ownership on the grounds that he has been using the suit land for brickkiln and has been paying license fee to Municipal Corporation, Ratlam who has to manage the government land situate within the corporation area and that there had been no entry of the suit land being Nazul land in the revenue records."

3. During the pendency of the appeal original plaintiff expired on 30.03.2017, the legal heirs of the plaintiff filed an application being I.A. No.2941/2017 on 04.05.2017 informing about the death. Since no steps were taken by the State of M.P. / appellant for bringing the legal heirs on record, therefore, vide order dated 12.12.2018 second appeal was dismissed as abated. The aforesaid order is reproduced below:
Learned counsel for the respondent has pointed out that the sole respondent had died on 30.3.2017 and the intimation in this regard was given by filing an application being IA No.2941/2017 dated 4.5.2017, yet no steps have been taken to bring the LR of the decease sole respondent on record. He has submitted that in view of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of Union of India v. Ram Charan , reported in AIR 1964 SC 215 the appeal automatically abates on expiry of the statutory period in not filing the application for substitution. Same is the view taken by the Supreme Court subsequently in the matter of Gurnam Singh and others v. Gurbachan Kaur and others , reported in 2017(2) JLJ 166 (SC) : (AIR 2017 SC 2419).
Having regard to the aforesaid, the appeal has abated by operation of law, hence it is dismissed as abated.

4. The State of M.P. filed an application under O.22, R.9, CPC , an application for condonation of delay and an application under O.22, R.4, which was registered as MCC No.1424/2019. The aforesaid applications were opposed by the legal heirs of the plaintiff and vide order dated 19.06.2020 this Court has declined to condone the delay of 668 days, the MCC filed for restoration has been dismissed. Now, the present review petition is being filed after the delay of 403 days but the benefit of Covid relaxation in light of the Supreme Court judgment dated 27.04.2021 has been granted hence, this review is within time.

5. Shri Umesh Gajankush, learned Additional Advocate General for the petitioners submitted that the reasons for non - condoning the delay which is given in the order dated 19.06.2020 (passed in M. C . .) are contrary to the facts of the case, at the relevant time, the concerne