JUDGMENT Tarun Agarwala, J.
1. This Court finally allowed the writ petition No. 21103 of 1999 by a judgment dated 26.3.2004 quashing the impugned order dated 28.6.95 and holding that the petitioner would be deemed to be in service till 30.6.97 and would be entitled to all consequential benefits including salary and retirement benefits. The respondents were further directed to pay the entire arrears of salary within 8 weeks from the date of the submission of a certified copy of the order. The respondents were also directed to pay the retirement benefits treating the applicant to be in service till 30.6.1997.
2. The judgement of this Court was not complied by the opposite party and accordingly the present contempt application was filed on 28.7.2004. Notices were issued to the opposite party No. 1 on 29.7.2004 and one more opportunity was granted to the opposite party to comply with the order of the Court. On 17.9.2004, the opposite party No. 1 filed a counter affidavit indicating that the opposite party has sought instructions from the higher authorities for the compliance of the order and prayed that the hearing of the contempt petition be adjourned for two months to enable the opposite party to take a decision and comply with the orders of the Court.
3. During the pendency of the contempt application, it transpires that the opposite party No. 1 was transferred and an impleadment application was filed to implead the opposite party No. 2, who was subsequently impleaded by an order dated 21.7.2005. The opposite party No. 2 has also filed a counter affidavit indicating that the State Government by a letter dated 18.3.2005 granted permission to file a Special Appeal, pursuant to which a Special Appeal No. 289 of 2005 was filed and, therefore has prayed that the contempt proceedings be deferred till the disposal of the Special Appeal.
4. Sri Nurul Huda, the Standing Counsel appearing for the opposite party contended that since the Special Appeal is pending consideration before this Hon'ble Court, the contempt proceedings should be kept in abeyance till the disposal of the Special Appeal. In support of his submission, the learned counsel placed reliance upon a decision of the Supreme Court in Ram Avadh Singh v. Lalji Yadav and Ors. in Criminal Appeal No. 841 of 2001 decided on 20.8.2001, in which it was held that the contempt proceedings should have not been continued in view of the appeal having been filed against the said judgment. Further reliance was placed in the case of Modern Food Industries (India) Ltd. and Anr. v. Sachidanand Dass and Anr. 1995 Supp (4) SCC 465 and in the case of State of J & K v. Mohd. Yaqoob Khan and Ors. .
5. In my opinion, the aforesaid judgements are distinguishable. No doubt if an appeal or stay vacating application is pending which has not been considered by the writ Court, in that event, it is always appropriate that the contempt proceedings should remain in abeyance till the disposal of the appeal or of the stay vacating application. But that does not mean that in each and every case, the contempt proceedings should remain in abeyance merely because an appeal has been filed or that a stay vacating application was pending. The opposite party must show their bonafides and place before the Court that the appeal was filed within the period of limitation; that the department or the Government agency was pursuing the matter deligently before the appropriate Court.
6. In Prithawi Nath Ram v. State of Jharkhand and Ors. , the Supreme Court held that the Court is only concerned with the question as to whether the earlier decision which had received finality had been complied with or not. Similar view was again reiterated by the Supreme Court in Director of Education, Uttaranchal and Ors. v. Ved Prakash Joshi and Ors. 2005 SCC (Cri) 1357.
7. In the present case, the judgment in writ petition was delivered on 26.3.2004. After almost one year, the State Government granted permission to file an appeal on 18.3.2005. As per the information given by the learned counsel, the Special Appeal was filed on 17.5.2005 along with a stay application, in which a Division Bench of this Court only issued notices on the application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act. Notice on the stay application has not been issued by the Division Bench.
8. The law of limitation is the same for a private citizen as well as for the Government Authority. The Government like any other litigant must take responsibility for the act or omission of its officers. The expression " sufficient cause" under the Limitation Act must receive a liberal construction. A certain amount of latitude can be given to the State Authorities on account of its impersonal machinery, but it does not mean that the State and its authorities would get away by filing a belated appeal and create a legal alibi for the non compliance of the order on the sole ground that the Special Appeal has now been filed.
9. In my opinion, the filing of a belated appeal by the opposite party was to circumvent the order passed by the Court. Till date, nothing has been indicated as to what steps, the opposite party has taken to get the application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act decided or get the appeal decided on merit. At the present moment, the present appeal filed by the opposite party is defective and the stay application does not exist in the eyes of law. Consequently, deferring the hearing of the contempt application cannot be granted to the opposite party.
10. In the present case, the judgement of the Court is with regard to the payment of post retirement benefits. The applicant has served the opposite party and it is his right to get the post retirement benefits.
11. In view of the aforesaid, in the interest of justice and as a last resort I grant six weeks further time to the opposite party Nos. 1 and 2 to comply with the order and judgment of the Court passed in the writ petition, failing which, the opposite party Nos. 1 and 2 would appear in person for the framing of the charge/ charges.