Hyderabad High Court raps state for delay in appeals

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court observed that the courts, by condoning delays in the filing of appeals, made the executive apparatus of the court inefficient. They were even condoning reasons which were jejune.  A division bench comprising Justice CV Nagarjuna Reddy and Justice DVSS Somayajulu, dismissed an application by the Telangana government represented by the deputy collector of Warangal, seeking to condone a delay of almost four years (3,787 days) for filing an appeal against a decree passed by the lower court in a land acquisition case.

Referring to the explanation offered by the deputy collector that the delay was caused due to misplacing of the file, the bench pointed out that it would not be difficult for the deputy collector to get it reconstructed with the aid of the court file after obtaining the certified copies, which was not done.

While noting that the State had taken nearly four years for filing this appeal, the bench said, “The utter lack of diligence is writ large on the faces of the concerned officials of the State. It will be a travesty of justice, if a delay of this nature, in the absence of any plausible explanation, is condoned.” The bench directed the state government to indentify the offices responsible for the utter negligence and inaction in filing the appeals on time, and to recover the losses from them.