Suram Singh Pathania vs The Deputy Commissioner, Patiala and others

N.K. Sud, J.—The Petitioner is aggrieved by the order of the Deputy Commissioner, Patiala, dated 8.5.2001, condoning the delay of 860 days in filing the appeal before him by Respondent No. 3.

The relevant facts, shorn of unnecessary details are as under:

The Petitioner was an employee of Respondent No. 3 and had been allotted residential accommodation bearing House No. 2342, Rajpura Township, Rajpura, on rent. The Petitioner staked his claim for buying this house at the reserve price of Rs. 100/- per sq. yard as per some policy of the Respondent-Corporation. His request was considered and he was offered the house at the market price. The Petitioner filed an appeal before the Chief Settlement Commissioner, Punjab, which was dismissed. The Petitioner, however, succeeded before the Financial Commissioner, who vide his order dated June 8, 1999 ordered that the house be transferred to him at the reserve price. The Respondent-Corporation filed CWP No. 815 of 1992 against the order of the Financial Commissioner, which was allowed vide order dated December 2, 1993 and the matter was remanded to the Financial Commissioner for a fresh decision. In pursuance of the said order, the Financial Commissioner dismissed the appeal of the Petitioner vide his order dated January 14, 1999 and rejected his claim for the purchase of the house at the reserve price. The Petitioner challenged the said order of the Financial Commissioner in CWP No. 6629 of 2000 which is stated to have been admitted and is pending.

The Respondent No. 3 had also filed a petition u/s 5 of Punjab Public Premises (Land Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1973 before the Collector, Rajpura, seeking eviction of the Petitioner from the house in question While disposing of the said petition, the Collector in his Order dated May 22, 1995 held that the Petitioner was not in unauthorised possession. He, however, held that since the Petitioner had not paid the rent after February, 1995, the arrears of rent be recovered from him failing which he was directed to vacate the house.

The Respondent No. 3 filed a Review Application against the order dated May 22, 1995 before the Collector on May 5, 1996 which was dismissed vide order dated April 28, 1997 on two grounds namely: (i) that the Review Application was not maintainable and (ii) that it was barred by time. A copy of this order has been produced as Annexure P-5 with the writ petition.

Not satisfied, the Respondent No. 3 filed an appeal before the Commissioner, Pa-tiala Divison, Patiala, on 18.9.1997 against the order of Collector dated May 22, 1995. The Petitioner, vide his application filed on 2.5.2001, opposed the entertainment of the appeal on the ground that it was hopelessly barred by limitation. The delay involved was of 860 days. The Commissioner, vide his order dated May 8, 2001, condoned the delay accepting the plea of Respondent No. 3 that the delay had occurred due to its wrongly perusing the remedy of review before the Collector. While condoning the delay the Commissioner also noticed the contention of the Respondent that the order passed by the Collector, Rajpura, suffered from serious irregularities and illegalities and if the delay was not condoned, the State would suffer huge loss merely because of an inadvertent mistake of the concerned official in perusing a wrong remedy. A copy of the order dated May 8, 2001 has been produced as Annexure P-8. It is against this order of the Commissioner that the present writ petition has been filed.

Shri P.K. Palli, Learned Counsel for the Petitioner, submitted that the Commissioner was not justified in condoning the delay on the ground that a wrong remedy of review had been perused by the Respondent No. 3. In support of his contention, he relied on the decision of a Division Bench of this Court in Paramjit Singh and Ors. v. The Financial Commissioner, Chandigarh and others, (2001)127 PLR 624. He also took objection to the observations made by the Commissioner that the order of the Collector suffered from serious irregularities and illegalities. This according to him was likely to prejudice his case on merits.

We have heard the Learned Counsel for the Petitioner and perused the authority relied upon by him,

There can be no hard and fast rules for determining as to what can or cannot constitute a valid ground for condonation of delay. Such ground cannot be put in a watertight compartment. A ground on the facts and in the circumstances of one case may not be acceptable as a sufficient ground for condoning the delay, but the same ground in the facts and circumstances of another case may be a valid ground for such condonation. In Paramjit Singh''s case (supra), this Court did not find the plea about pursuit of a wrong remedy of review as sufficient ground for condonation of delay because of the peculiar facts and circumstances of that case. In that case it had been clearly noticed that the remedy of review had not been perused in a bonafide manner. The Court had observed that there was no justification to continue the review petition for a period of 3 years and 11 days. This was held to be "rather misuse and abuse of the process of law". The Petitioners in that case had chosen not to appear before the learned Single Judge when the matter was fixed for rehearing despite repeated reminders. Thus this decision cannot be held to be an authority laying down an absolute proposition that pursuit of a wrong remedy can never be treated as a reasonable ground for condonation of delay. In the present case, there is no charge that the review petition was not bonafide or that it was not being perused properly or was being dragged on un-necessarily. The Commissioner in the exercise of his discretion has chosen to accept the contention of Respondent No. 3 to condone the delay. He had clearly observed that the delay in filing the appeal was neither intentional nor wilful. Nothing has been brought on record to show that these findings are not correct and, therefore, we find no ground to interfere in the same.

Regarding the grievance of the Petitioner about prejudicial observations made by the Commissioner about some grave irregularities and illegalities, we find that these observations are mere reproduction of the pleas raised by the Appellant before him and are not his findings. It is merely an expression of his view that if the grave irregularities and illegalities pointed out to him were found to be correct, the State Exchequer would suffer huge loss due to an inadvertent mistake of one of its officials. We find no ground for the apprehension of the Petitioner that these observations would prejudice his case on merits. He shall be fully entitled to prove his case before the Commissioner that there were no irregularities or illegalities in the order of the Collector.

No other point has been raised.

We, therefore, find no merit in this writ petition, and accordingly, it is dismissed in limine.

Sd/- Jawahar Lal Gupta, J.