Penalize Govt Officers Who Cause Delay In Filing Of Appeals : Supreme Court Directs All States

The Supreme Court has directed all States to fix liability on government officers who cause delay in the filing of appeals/cases on behalf of the government and thereby cause loss to the public exchequer.

The Court observed that in many cases, he filing of appeals are elayed due to the failure to communicate the decisions to the higher authorities in time. Thus, appeals get dismissed by the Courts on the grounds of delay, although the subject matter is highly valuable.

Exasperated with such instances, a bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan asked the States to streamline their machinery on litigation, fix responsibility on the officers, and penalize them for the value of loss caused to the government.

The bench made these observations while rejecting a Special Leave Petition filed by the State of Madhya Pradesh against the refusal of the High Court to condone the enormous delay of over 5 years (1788 days) in the filing of a second appeal.

The issue related to a land over which the trial court declared that a private person had the title, rejecting the government's claim. The judgment of the first appellate court was delivered on 21.08.2014. However, this fact was communicated by the Government Advocate to the Collector only after a year, on 25.08.2015. It took the Collector a further period of three months to inform this judgment to the Principal Secretary on 10.12.2015. Thereafter, the Law Department took three years' time and gave permission for filing appeal on 26.10.2018, which was sent to the Collector on 31.10.2018. Based on the said opinion, after preparation of the appeal papers, the State filed the second appeal only on 18.10.2019.

The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court's view that the delay has not been sufficiently explained. In this regard, the Court referred to the recent judgment in Union of India v. Jahangir Byramji Jeejeebhoy which held that delay should not be excused as a matter of generosity.

Even while dismissing the appeal on the ground of delay, the Court emphasised the importance of fixing responsibility on the delinquent officers.

"At the same time, we cannot simply brush aside the delay occurred in preferring the second appeal, due to callous and lackadaisical attitude on the part of the officials functioning in the State machinery. Though the Government adopts systematic approach in handling the legal issues and preferring the petitions/applications/appeals well within the time, due to the fault on the part of the officials in merely communicating the information on time, huge revenue loss will be caused to the Government exchequer. The present case is one such case, wherein, enormous delay of 1788 days occasioned in preferring the second appeal due to the lapses on the part of the officials functioning under the State, though valuable Government lands were involved. Therefore, we direct the State to streamline the machinery touching the legal issues, offering legal opinion, filing of cases before the Tribunal / Courts, etc., fix the responsibility on the officer(s) concerned, and penalize the officer(s), who is/are responsible for delay, deviation, lapses, etc., if any, to the value of the loss caused to the Government. Such direction will have to be followed by all the States scrupulously."

The Court dismissed the State's appeal with a cost of Rs 1 lakh rupees and gave a stern warning to the States against filing unnecessary appeals.

"We have deemed it necessary to impose costs to send a stern message that the States must not misuse the Supreme Court's time by filing appeals against the well-reasoned and conscious decisions rendered by the High Courts without proper grounds."

Also from the judgment -Litigant Seeking To Condone Delay Must Explain Why Appeal Was Not Filed From First Day Within Limitation Period : Supreme Court

Case : State of Madhya Pradesh v. Ramkumar Choudhary

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 953

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