The Bombay High Court rejected a civil application that sought condonation of a 203-day delay in filing a first appeal against a trial court’s order. At the same time, the Court criticised the common practice of litigants blaming their advocates for delays without making the advocate a party to the case or taking any action against them.

Facts:

A single-judge bench comprising Justice Jitendra Jain heard the said application, seeking condonation of delay of a total of 203 days as opposed to 176 days mentioned in the application, as the party made allegations against its advocates engaged before the civil court. The applicants accused the advocate engaged to handle the matter before a Pune civil court, of not attending the matter or duly communicating with them. It was alleged that the applicants learnt that the matter was already decided through the District Court website.

According to the applicants, they lost faith in their advocates after acting on their advice to file a review petition, which was later dismissed as not maintainable. After this, they engaged another advocate and filed an appeal before the High Court in 2016.

On reviewing the facts, the court noted that the roznama clearly showed the presence of the applicant-defendant in Court along with his advocate on the date of the final hearing. The court also observed that the applicants failed to produce supporting material such as complete WhatsApp chats with the advocate or call records. In the absence of such evidence, the Court held that the delay could not be condoned.

Stating so, the judge said, “Therefore, based on the records placed before me, the reasons given for attributing negligence on the part of the advocate cannot be accepted moreso without hearing the advocate and without there being any material in support of whatever is stated in the application. Acceptance of reasons would amount to accepting negligence of the advocate without any material and without hearing the advocate.”

The advocate for the appellant relied on the decision in Gautam Dham Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. (supra).However, the court rejected this reliance, noting that in that case the advocate had appeared before the Court and admitted his mistake, which was not the situation in the present matter.

Instead, the Court relied on the Supreme Court decision in Rajneesh Kumar and Anr. versus Ved Prakash, where it was held that, “Even if we assume for a moment that the concerned lawyer was careless or negligent, this, by itself, cannot be a ground to condone long and inordinate delay as the litigant owes a duty to be vigilant of his own rights and is expected to be equally vigilant about the judicial proceedings pending in the court initiated at his instance.”

Finding that there was no “sufficient cause” to justify the delay in filing the first appeal, the Court dismissed the civil application.

Case Detail:

Rahul Sambhu Kabade vs Subhashsingh Surajsingh Thakur (Civil Application 4334 of 2016)

Appearance:

Advocates Nikhil Adkine and Swaroop Godbole appeared for the Applicants.

Advocates JK Shah and Namrata Thakur instructed by R J Law represented the Respondents.