Court No. - 3
Case :- FIRST APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 156 of 2018 Appellant :- Arvind Kumar Bindal Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Another Counsel for Appellant :- Shakti Dhar Dube,Neeraj Dube
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Rajiv Joshi,J.
Heard Sri S.D. Dube, learned counsel for the appellant.
The appellant has filed this appeal under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act against the judgment, order and award of the reference court dated 27.4.1996 passed by the 4th Additional District Judge Etach.
The appeal is reported to be beyond time by 21 years 283/289 days.
The submission of Sri Dube, learned counsel for the appellant is that the appellant was suffering from heart ailment since November, 1995 and as such could not know about the pronouncement of the impugned judgment and order dated 27.4.1996. It was only on 15 February, 2018 that on contacted his local counsel he came to know that the matter has been dismissed in the year 1996. Since there is no willful and deliberate delay on the part of the appellant in filing the appeal, the same may be condoned as there are decisions of the Supreme Court which shows that the Court should take liberal approach in condoning the delay and in many cases even large delays have been condoned by the Supreme Court.
There is no dispute to the fact that the land was notified for acquisition under Section 4 (1) of the Act on 30.5.1981 and declaration under Section 6 was issued on 6.11.1982. The award under Section 1 was made on 22.9.1986 whereupon reference under Section 18 was preferred which was dismissed by the Court vide judgment and order dated 27.4.1986. The appellant had been participating the proceedings and therefore, it cannot be said that he had no knowledge of the award. Mere fact that the appellant was having some heart problem or ailment and that his on medicine since 1995 does not mean that he was confined to bed and was unable to undertake his daily routines or other works. Heart disease is not a disease of the nature which disables a person from doing any work unless advised be rest. There is nothing on record to establish that the appellant was advised complete bed rest since 1995 till 2018. Normally heart patients are advised to avoid stress but are able to perform all necessary things including that of attending office work.
There is no specific averment that the nature of the heart disease of the appellant was of such nature that he was advised not to move out and to remain confined to bed. Moreover, the appellant had not made any inquiry about the status of his case from 1995 till 2018 and no reason in this regard has been assigned. If the appellant could make inquiry about the case from local counsel in the year 2018, despite suffering from heart disease it is incomprehensible as to why he could not make such an inquiry earlier.
In view of aforesaid facts and circumstances, we are not satisfied with the explanation furnished for condoning the delay in filing this appeal .
The Delay condonation application No. 1 of 2018 is rejected and consequently appeal is dismissed as barred by time.
Order Date :- 28.5.2018 Akbar