BENGALURU: "The state, which enacted the law to bring order and accountability into governmental litigation, has itself failed to demonstrate fidelity to its mandate. The irony is unmistakable: the State enacted a law to arrest red-tapism, but red-tapism appears to have arrested the operation of the law", the Karnataka High Court observed, for extraordinary delay in filing the appeals beyond the limitation period, that too by the Department of Law, Justice and Human Rights and Karnataka State Law University (KSLU).
It noted that Karnataka is not bereft of a statutory framework governing the conduct of its litigation as it has enacted the Karnataka Conduct of Government Litigation Act, 2023, with the object of ensuring efficiency, responsibility and expedition in the conduct of governmental litigation before courts and statutory tribunals.
It said a law enacted by the state cannot remain a mere ornament in the statute book, commanding obedience from everyone except its own author.
The state must be the first to honour the discipline of the law that it has chosen to enact. It is expected to be a model litigant, not a privileged procrastinator, it added.
A division bench of Justices M Nagaprasanna and Hema Kulkarni made these observations, dismissing the three appeals filed by the state government, secretary, Department of Law, Justice and Human Rights and another appeal filed by KSLU in 2026, challenging the order passed by a single judge concerning the appointments, for extraordinary delay in filing them. The appeals before the division bench were delayed by 626 days, 1,099 days, 466 days and 548 days, respectively.
Unhappy with the explanation offered by the appellants for delay in filing the appeals, the court said that extraordinary delay cannot be condoned merely because the appellant happens to be the State; for the majesty of law lies as much in its uniform application as in its faithful enforcement.
The court said that what is presented as an explanation is, in substance, an assortment of administrative excuses; what is sought as judicial indulgence would, if granted, amount to judicial endorsement of bureaucratic apathy.
The state and the university must stand before the law of limitation on the same footing as every other litigant. The applications seeking condonation of delay, therefore, fail to inspire judicial confidence and deserve rejection, as barred by limitation, the court added.
Pointing out that the application seeking condonation of delay is nothing but a verbatim reproduction of the application filed in an appeal, with no discernible attempt to furnish an explanation peculiar to the facts and circumstances of the case, it said that a copy-and-paste explanation cannot become a passport to condonation of delay.