UNION OF INDIA & ORS. versus VISVESWARAYA IRON & STEEL LTD. on 24 November 1986

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UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

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v.VISVESWARAYA IRON & STEEL LTD.

NOVEMBER 24, 1986

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[P.N. BHAGWATI, C.J. AND RANGANATH MISRA, J.J

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_ Practice and Procedure—Delay in filing the Special Leave Petition notexplained in the petition—Party desiring to file a supplemental affidavit toexplain it, when the case is calledfor, aftera lapse ofnearly twoyears, hearing—Delay cannot be condoned—Supreme Court Rules,1966, OrderXLVIRule Iread with Section 5 of the Limitation Act.

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Dismissing the SLP and CMP, the Court,

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HELD: In the absence of any ground having been made out in theapplication for the condonation of delay in filing the Special Leave Petition,‘filed on 7.1.85, excepting the listing of dates on which different departmentsDtook steps in passing on the file, the Supreme Court cannot exercise its inherentpowers under Rule 1 of Order XLVII of the Supreme Court Rules read withsection 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 and condone delay. Nor would it grant. permission upon oral request to file a supplemental affidavit after a lapse of nearly two years. [368C-D]

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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Petition For Special Leave toAppeal (Civil) No. 2448 Of 1985; |

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‘From the Judgment and Order dated 10.7.84 of the High court ofKarnataka at Bangalore in Writ Appeal No. 1267/84.

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B. Datta, ASG. and Ms. S. Relan for the Petitioner.oe .

|‘The following Order was delivered

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This Special Leave Petition has been filed beyond the periad prescribedby the Rules for filing a special leave petition. The petitioner has filed anapplication for condonation of delay in filing the special leave petition. Thereare no grounds made out in the application for condonation of delay and the. onlyof receipt material of the set out certified in the application copy of the is judgment the list of uptodates the as starting dates of from filing the of date theSpecial Leave Petition. It appears from the list of dates that the certified copywas received by the Collector of Central Excise on 22nd July, 1984 (wrongly G|

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A mentioned as 22nd July, 84) and it was aft" a period of two months, on 29th September, 1984 that the certified copy was despatched by the Collector of Central Excise to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance referred the Case to the Central Agency Section on l ith October, 1984. But the Central Agency Section sent back the case to the Ministry of Finance with the remark that the same should be sent to the Ministry of Law. This process of realisation B that the case should have been referred to the Ministry of Law and not to the Ministry of Finance took about 24 days and thereafter, again, some time was taken up at the subsequent stages. The learned Additional Solicitor General gave his opinion on 18th December, 1984 It.at the special leave petition should be filed. But even thereafter, there was a delay of more than a month and a halfand on 7th July, 1985, a special leave petition was filed without offering any C explanation for this delay at three stage,;. The Learned Additional Solicitor General requested us to give him an oppo1tunity to file a supplemental affidavit explaining the delay at the three stages. But we do not see why any further time should be granted to the petitioners tc· file a supplemental affidavit. The application 'for condonation of delay wa,; made on 7th January, 1985 and we D are now in November 1986 and the petitioners thus had a period of about one year and nine months to rectify the defect by filing a supplemental affidavit but the petitioners have failed to do so. We do. not under the circumstances find any justification for condoning the delay and the application is. therefore rejected and so is the Special Leave Petition.

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Petition dismissed.

S.R.

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