Judges who hear routine requests from lawyers to “condone” inordinate delays in filing appeals, crossing the time limits set by statutes, face a problem. Condoning the delay would encourage lethargy among litigants who would take such judicial leniency for granted. On the other hand, if they dismiss such appeals because they were filed beyond the strict time limits set by the law, litigants with genuine justification would suffer and their rights would be effaced.
Time limits are set on the basis of the old legal maxim: “Equity aids the vigilant, not those who slumber on their rights.” The dilemma faced by judges is acute when the revenue departments plead for condonation of delay. Huge amounts in taxes are involved and the departments are habitually late in filing their appeals, not by days, but by months or years. If the judges take a stern view and dismiss these appeals on the ground of delay, the people would be the ultimate sufferers as revenues would be lost. Since tax evaders are the winners in this game of delays, they are the main suspects when there is a long wait. It is difficult to say whether the appeals were filed late because of the generic nature of bureaucracy or if the delay was encouraged by the artful evader.
The Supreme Court judgment, delivered a few days ago, in the Oriental Aroma Chemical Industries Ltd vs Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation case is the latest to highlight the judicial quandary. The judges of the Gujarat High Court pardoned the delay of more than four years committed by the state Corporation in filing the appeal in a case it had lost in the courts below. The judges used their discretionary powers pointing out that though the delay was claimed to be more than four years and 28 days, in fact it was only 1,067 days. That was a fine point of law and good arithmetic.
When the company moved the Supreme Court, it not only found the exercise of discretion faulty, but proved from the facts that the state Corporation had not approached the court “with clean hands”. The lawyers of the Corporation did not appear in the court several times and they were not even instructed by the Corporation officials. The Supreme Court not only dismissed the appeal of the Corporation pending in the Gujarat High Court, but also ordered a probe by higher functionaries into the conduct of the officers who caused the delay. If the Corporation had suffered losses on account of the conduct of the officers, the court said the amount should be recovered from them.
Around this time last year, the Supreme Court found a “classic example” of engineered delay in litigation in the State of Karnataka vs Y Mooideen Kunhi case. The state government filed an appeal in the Karnataka High Court 14 years after it lost a case before the land tribunal. The government pleaded for condonation of delay which was rejected. Its appeal to the Supreme Court invited condemnation for the behaviour of the officials. The court asked the government to pay Rs 10 lakh before hearing the appeal. It also directed the government to initiate action against “every person responsible for the alleged fraud and delay in pursuing legal remedies, fix responsibility and recover the amount from them”. No balm for petitioner Kunhi, as he had died during the proceedings he had started in 1982.
The Supreme Court remarked in that judgment that delays are “skillfully managed” and it is done “to protect unscrupulous litigants at the cost of public interest or exchequer. Though the courts are liberal in dealing with belated presentation of appeals, there is a limit to which such liberal attitude can be extended”.
A few months earlier, the court had again called upon the government to fix responsibility on erring officials in the State of Delhi vs Ahmed Jaan case.
The Comptroller and Auditor General had made a study of such delays in 2003 and found that these were mainly due to negligence in following the rules that are already in the statute books. Delays occur at all stages, for example: receipt of certified copy; submission of papers to the board; their examination; drafting by the panel of counsel and filing by the officials. Then there are transfers and promotions of officials dealing with sensitive revenue cases.
The problem has become acute and chronic in recent years. A committee headed by a former attorney general had not succeeded in clearing up the mess in the Union law department processing and filing appeals. Recently, there were reports of the income tax department moving the Supreme Court for condoning delays in 700-odd appeals. The loss to the government in such cases was astronomical. Since there are no guidelines on the use of discretion, the high courts take different views according to the “facts and circumstances” of the case.
