Supreme Court cannot be a place for governments to walk in when they choose, ignoring limitation period: Apex Court pulls up MP govt

The Supreme Court last week pulled up the Madhya Pradesh government for filing an appeal before it after a delay of 663 days.

. While dismissing this matter on grounds of limitation, the Court went on to impose costs of Rs 25,000 on the State for wasting judicial time.

. The scathing order passed by a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Dinesh Maheshwari reads,

. "The Supreme Court of India cannot be a place for the Governments to walk in when they choose ignoring the period of limitation prescribed. We have raised the issue that if the Government machinery is so inefficient and incapable of filing appeals/petitions in time, the solution may lie in requesting the Legislature to expand the time period for filing limitation for Government authorities because of their gross incompetence. That is not so. Till the Statute subsists, the appeals/petitions have to be filed as per the Statues prescribed." Supreme Court . The message sent out by the Court was, however, not restricted to the Madhya Pradesh government, but was for all government counsel.

"No doubt, some leeway is given for the Government inefficiencies but the sad part is that the authorities keep on relying on judicial pronouncements for a period of time when technology had not advanced and a greater leeway was given to the Government."

. In the instant case, the reason for delay cited by the Madhya Pradesh government was "unavailability of the documents and the process of arranging for documents" . The "inadvertent delay" had also been passed off as a result of "bureaucratic process works" , the Court records.

The Court opined that a larger message must be sent out to counter the cavalier manner in which government appeals are filed. The order states,

"A preposterous proposition is sought to be propounded that if there is some merit in the case, the period of delay is to be given a go-by. If a case is good on merits, it will succeed in any case. It is really a bar of limitation which can even shut out good cases."

. It was further noted that this practice is adopted in what the Court has described as "certificate cases", that is when an appeal is filed to obtain a certificate of dismissal from the Supreme Court to put a quietus to the issue.

. The Bench went on to note that despite deprecating this practice on earlier occasions,

"There seems to be no improvement. The purpose of coming to this Court is notto obtain such certificates and if the Government suffers losses, it is time when the concerned officer responsible for the same bears the consequences. The irony is that in none of the cases any action is taken against the officers, who sit on the files and do nothing . It is presumed that this Court will condone the delay and even in making submissions, straight away counsels appear to address on merits without referring even to the aspect of limitation as happened in this case till we pointed out to the counsel that he must first address us on the question of limitation."

. In order to send out a message to government authorities that they must pay for wastage of judicial time, the Court found it appropriate to impose costs of Rs 25,000 on the State.

The costs, the Court said, must be recovered from the concerned officials whose inaction caused the delay in filing the SLP. A certificate of recovery of this amount is required to be filed before the Court within four weeks.

. The Court also made it clear that a failure to deposit the costs with the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee and a submission of the certificate of recovery would lead to initiation of contempt proceedings against the Chief Secretary of the State.

. Read Order:

Supreme Court cannot be a place for governments to walk in when they choose, ignoring limitation period: Apex Court pulls up MP govt

Shruti Mahajan

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