(Per : HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE AKIL KURESHI) The applicant Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has filed this application seeking condonation of delay of 1233 days in filing the First Appeal(stamp) no.5321/2009.
First Appeal is directed against the decision of the Learned Small Causes Court in appeal involving municipal tax. The judgement was delivered on 12.1.2006. Appeal came to be filed on or around 5.10.2009. Much thereafter i.e. nearly a year later on 5.7.2010 application for condonation of delay came to be filed. It can thus be seen that at all stages the applicant Corporation has shown utter lethargy in pursuing its remedies. To explain such inordinate delay in the present application all that has been stated is that the judgement was rendered on 12.1.2006. However, advocate on record of the Corporation neither informed the Corporation nor applied or forwarded certified copy of the judgement to the Corporation. It was only on 27.8.2009 when the party concerned made an application to the Corporation to give effect to the judgement that the Corporation came to know about such an order having been passed. Along with the application, no affidavit of the concerned advocate has been filed. What steps the Corporation took against such negligence on part of the advocate is not known. Even the identity of the person concerned is not revealed. We are of the opinion that such inordinate delay of more than 1200 days has not been sufficiently explained. The party in whose favour appellate order was rendered would have a reasonable ground to believe that such an order has become final for want of any challenge by the Corporation. Nearly four years have passed, therefore, the challenge of the Corporation cannot be revived without sufficient strong reasons explaining such long delay.
In the result, the application is dismissed. Resultantly, First Appeal (stamp) no 5321/2009 and accompanying Civil Application (stamp) no.10923/2009 for stay also stands terminated.
(Akil Kureshi,J.) (C.L.
Soni,J.) (raghu) Top