Akula Veeraiah vs The Commissioner of Civil Supplies and Others

C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy, J.—The Petitioner who for obvious reasons is after Respondent No. 5 to see that her authorisation is cancelled on a spacious ground of her not residing in the village for which she holds the fair price shop authorization has initiated yet another round of litigation by filing this writ petition.

A perusal of the contents of the affidavit filed in support of writ petition would show that the litigation is hanging fire since 16.11.2007 when the authorization of Respondent No. 5 was cancelled on the sole ground of her alleged non residence at the Rajampet village. Since then Respondent No. 5 is dragged to different fora. When she eventually succeeded before Respondent No. 3 who by his order, dated 21.01.2010 sought to put a quietus to the litigation by allowing the appeal filed by Respondent No. 5 and setting aside order, dated 21.05.2009 of Respondent No. 4 cancelling her authorization, the Petitioner has filed a Revision Petition before Respondent No. 2 along with an application for condonation of delay, Respondent No. 2 who has first dealt with the Petitioner''s application for condonation of delay has dismissed the same and in my view rightly so on the ground that under Clause 21(i) of the Andhra Pradesh State Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2001 (for short ''Control Order'') an aggrieved person shall file a revision within 30 days from the date of communication to him of such order. It is not in dispute that the revision filed by the Petitioner was beyond the prescribed time limit. Respondent No. 2 held that as it is not a civil Court, Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 (for short ''the Limitation Act) has no application.

At the hearing of Sri Ch. Janardhan Reddy, learned Counsel for the Petitioner, strenuously contended that while it is not in dispute that Respondent No. 2 is not a civil Court, still he is entitled to condone the delay in filing the revision petition in the same way as Respondent No. 3 has entertained the appeal filed by Respondent No. 5 beyond the prescribed period of limitation.

The legal principle that the Courts and the statutory functionaries exercising judicial or quasi-judicial power for resolution of disputes arising under special enactments have no power to condone delay in filing cases beyond the time stipulated by such special statutes, is fairly well settled. (See: CCE and Customs v. Hongo India (P) Ltd. (2009) 5 SCC 791 and Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board Vs. Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and Others, ).

Admittedly, Respondent No. 2 is not a civil Court and therefore, the provisions of Section 5 of the Limitation Act have no application. It is also not in dispute that the provisions of the Control Order do not empower Respondent No. 2 to entertain a revision petition beyond the prescribed period of limitation. Therefore, the impugned order whereby the Petitioner''s application for condonation of delay has been rejected does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity warranting interference by this Court.

For the aforementioned reasons, the writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed.

As a sequel to dismissal of the Writ Petition, W.P.M.P. No. 42483 of 2010 filed by the Petitioner for interim relief is dismissed as infructuous.