THE HON’BLE JUSTICE MOUSHUMI BHATTACHARYA AND THE HON’BLE JUSTICE B.R.MADHUSUDHAN RAO I.A.No.1 OF 2025 IN/AND COMCA No.1 of 2025 Sri Shyam S.Agrawal, learned counsel for the appellant.

Mr. Ashish Kale, learned counsel representing Ms. Sneha Bhogle, learned counsel for the respondent No.1.

COMMON ORDER: (Per Hon’ble. Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya)

1. The petitioner/appellant, M/s. Telangana State Industrial Development Corporation Limited, has challenged the impugned order and decree passed by the learned Commercial Court dated 16.02.2023, whereby the appellant’s Commercial Original Petition (C.O.P.No.38 of 2016) filed under section 31(1)(a) and (aa) of The State Financial Corporations Act, 1951, for a decree against the respondents for an amount of Rs.1,30,31,000/- with interest @ 17.5% per annum, was dismissed.

2. The present Appeal was filed on 26.12.2024 along with an application (I.A.No.1 of 2025) for condonation of a delay of 514 days in filing the Appeal. The parties have filed their respective affidavits in the I.A. The respondents have strongly objected to the condonation of delay.

3. We have heard learned counsel appearing for the petitioner/appellant and learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.1 in support of their submissions and considered the case law cited on behalf of the parties.

4. The petitioner/appellant has filed two affidavits in support of the application for condonation of delay. The second affidavit is described as an ‘Additional Affidavit’ for supplementing the reasons stated in the first affidavit. The reasons for the condonation of delay are set out from paragraph 25 of the first affidavit. The relevant dates mentioned are as follows.

5. The petitioner states that after passing of the impugned order on 16.02.2023, the petitioner applied for a Certified Copy of the said order and decree on 22.02.2023 and the Certified Copy was furnished to the petitioner on 07.06.2023. Upon receiving the copy of the order, the petitioner’s Law Officer prepared a note and submitted it to the ‘Higher Officials’ for taking a decision and necessary action. However, the immediate higher official, the Deputy General Manager of the petitioner ‘took long time to go through and understand the impugned order and after sometime, he had placed it before the Managing Director of the petitioner’. Elections were declared in the State of Telangana, during which ‘all the officials were busy and no instructions were coming for the decisions to be taken in regard to legal matters and the issue of the present case was lying pending’. By the time normal work resumed after the State Elections, the Union Elections had commenced and ‘again there was no progress in the work including the issue of the present case’. Paragraph 26 of the affidavit further states that even after the Union Elections, ‘it took some time for normal work to get resumed...... However, the file of the present case got mixed up in the numerous files that were pending for circulation...... and hence no decision was taken as the file itself was got mixed up and went missing’.

6. Paragraph 27 of the affidavit states that it was only in November, 2024 that the petitioner realized that ‘the decision in regard to the impugned order had not yet been taken’ and that the matter was pending. This came to light when the respondent No.1 approached the petitioner for return of the original Title Deeds of the schedule property. The petitioner gave instructions to put up the file ‘but the same was not being traced and it was realized that the file was missing’. The petitioner thereafter gave instructions to trace the file and place it before the higher officials. It is further stated that ‘after a long search and with great difficulty, the file could be traced out in the second week of December, 2024’. The petitioner immediately held discussions with counsel and a decision was taken to file an Appeal before the High Court. The Appeal was thereafter prepared and filed.

7. The ‘Additi