CHENNAI: Flagging the issue of long delay and lame reasons cited by government departments in filing appeals against court orders in high-stakes cases, the first bench of Madras High Court has directed the chief secretary to hold an inquiry by the vigilance department to ascertain whether non-filing of appeals in high-stakes cases is an act of negligence or connivance of the officials concerned.
The direction was issued by the bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan recently while dismissing a condonation petition filed by the Greater Chennai Corporation against a single judge’s order over a land dispute with Kannammal Education Trust.
The petition, along with the appeal, was filed for condoning a delay of 1,421 days. The GCC cited the reasons of unavailability of the 2021 order of the single judge in the GCC office and delay on the part of the revenue department in furnishing land documents. Stating that the averments in the affidavit do not constitute sufficient cause to condone the delay, the bench dismissed the application and rejected the appeal in summon receipt (SR) stage.
It said, “at this stage, we are constrained to issue a direction to the chief secretary of the state as we are finding that in a large number of cases, the appeals are being filed after a great delay and lame excuses, as in the present case, are being made. It is either gross negligence or a case of connivance with the other party.”
“In case of such a gross delay and absence of any reason assigned, the controlling authority is required to hold appropriate inquiry. We are of the view that such cases where appeals are not being filed since long, should also be discreetly examined by the vigilance department to find out whether the non-filing of appeal where the state or its authorities have high stakes involved, was result of gross negligence or a case of connivance,” the bench said in the order.