Time Is Precious, Courts Should Be Slow To Ignore Delay When Action Is Time-Barred: Madras High Court

Justice Shamim Ahmed observed that the statute relating to limitation determines the life span of a legal remedy and as time passes, newer causes would come up necessitating newer persons to seek legal remedy. Remarking that time is precious, the court thus noted that if the life span of legal remedy was not followed, it may lead to unending uncertainty and anarchy.

“The statute relating to limitation determines a life span for such legal remedy for redress of the legal injury, one has suffered. Time is precious and the wasted time would never revisit. During efflux of time, newer causes would come up, necessitating newer persons to seek legal remedy by approaching the Courts. So a life span must be fixed for each remedy. Unending period for launching the remedy may lead to unending uncertainty and consequential anarchy,” the court said.

The court was hearing a plea by Mayalagu challenging an order of the Director of Collegiate Education and to direct the authorities to give him notional promotion as Lab Assistant in VSS Government Arts College with all benefits.

Mayalagu submitted that he was initially appointed as a Sports Marker in the college. When the college intended to fill up the post of Lab Assistant with one post to be filled through direct recruitment and two posts through promotion, Mayalagu was not considered since a disciplinary proceeding had been initiated against him under Rule 17(a) of the Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules. It was informed that he had been imposed with the punishment of stoppage of increment for one year without cumulative effect.

When the same was challenged before the writ court, the court directed the college to appoint Mayalagu as lab assistant pursuant to which he was promoted by proceedings dated May 27, 2013. During the pendency of the petition, his punishment was reduced to a censure. Since censure was not a bar to get promotion, Mayalagu submitted a representation in 2013 asking the authorities to promote him with effect from 2008, the date on which two of the three posts were filled up. This representation was rejected in 2019 following which Mayalagu retired.

The respondents challenged the petition and argued that it was filed belatedly after 2 years of his retirement. It was argued that at the belated stage, granting retrospective notional promotion was not feasible as it had become time-barred.

The court noted that there was no proper and satisfactory explanation for giving a belated representation and for filing the petition 2 years after retirement. Thus, the court opined that the claim could not be sustained on the grounds of laches.

The court added that while it cannot be presumed that a delay in approaching court was always deliberate, it was necessary to show sufficient cause for the delay. The court added that the “sufficient cause” must show that the delay was not deliberate, negligent and due to the casual approach of the litigant but was Bonafide die to reasons beyond the litigant's control.

In the present case, the court was not satisfied with the explanation rendered by the litigant. The court added that the delay remained virtually unexplained and thus, the court was not inclined to exercise judicial discretion to condone the delay. The court observed that after being promoted as Lab Assistant in 2013, the petitioner kept quiet for more than five years without making any request for notional promotion which would show that he had accepted the post.

Thus, finding no reason to interfere, the court dismissed the plea.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. R. Suriya Narayanan

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr. D. Sadiq Raja, Additional Government Pleader

Case Title: S. Mayalagu v. The Director of Collegiate Education and Another

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 109

Case No: WP(MD) No.6979 of 2021