Ms. Sonia A. Menon, Advocate. v. SLS. DAV PUBLIC SCHOOL AND ANR. .....

1. By this writ petition under Article 226 and Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner impugns the order of the Delhi School Tribunal (DST) dated 6.8.2010 whereby the DST dismissed the application for condonation of delay in re-filing of the appeal. The delay in re-filing of the appeal is of around seven months.

2. Ordinarily, the courts are liberal in considering the applications for condonation of delay in re-filing of an appeal, however, peculiar facts of this case persuade this court to reject the challenge laid in this Court to the impugned order. 2017:DHC:1381

3. Petitioner was working as a Cleaner/Safai Karamchari with the respondent no. 1/school. He was removed from the services w.e.f. 28.2.2009 on the very serious charge of outraging the modesty of a five year old school girl in the school bus. Petitioner was removed after enquiry proceedings were conducted and the Enquiry Officer’s Report was accepted by the disciplinary authority. The appeal after being filed on 1.6.2009 was re-filed only on 2.2.2010. The issue before this court is whether the DST has rightly refused to condone the delay in re-filing of the appeal. I may note that re-filing had to be within seven days but the re-filing was done after around seven months. The relevant paras of the impugned order are paras 2 and 7 and which paras read as under:- “2. The facts as are necessary for disposing of the present application are that the Appellant Sh. Dharamvir Singh was removed from service as Safai Karamchari w.e.f 28.02.2009 on the allegation of outraging the modesty of a 5 years old school girl in the school bus. The applicant filed the appeal on 01.06.2009. The same was returned to him by the Registry of this Tribunal for removal of certain defects. It was refilled only on 02.02.2010. In his present application for condonation of delay in refilling the appeal, the Appellant submitted that he was not keeping well when the appeal was returned to his Counsel by the Registry. Due to ill health he could not give proper and necessary instruction to his counsel for refilling the appeal. For this reason, the defects pointed out by the Registry could not be removed within the stipulated time. A large number of pages were required to be changed.

7. Coming to the case in hand Appellant is required to give an explanation for his failure to contact his counsel for a period of 7 months. He has not placed on record any medical certificate of his illness for a period of 7 months. The purpose of limitation is defeated if the appellants are allowed to refile the appeals after a period of 7 months without satisfactorily explaining the delay in refilling. The application is hence dismissed. File be consigned to record room.”

4. From the reading of the aforesaid paras of the impugned order of the DST it is seen that petitioner has not placed on record any documents, much less his medical certificate of illness for a period of seven months so that the Court could accept the reason for delay in refiling of seven months. Being liberal in condonation of delay is different than the fact that delay be condoned without any sufficient reason being given. Once the petitioner has failed to satisfactorily explain the delay in re-filing for as many as seven months, and the DST has rightly disbelieved the same inasmuch as there was no material to show that on account of petitioner not keeping well he could not give proper instructions to his counsel, this Court refuses to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the impugned order of the DST.

5. In view of the above, this writ petition is dismissed inasmuch as the DST has rightly refused to condone the delay of seven months in re-filing of the appeal. Parties are left to bear their own costs.

MARCH 08, 2017 VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J godara