MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has condoned a delay of 11,629 days (over 31 years) by the state government in filing a second appeal against a civil court judgment passed in favour of private individuals with respect to 291 acres of land in Karaikudi in 1988.
The respondents – MAMM Annamalai Chettiar, Meenakshi Aachi, Visalakshi Achi, Valli Meyyappan, MAC Muthaiah Chettiar, M A M R Muthaiah @ Ayyappan, R Ramanathan Chettiar (died), M A Chidambaram Chettiar (died), and MAM Ramasamy Chettiar (died) – belong to a prominent family in the state.
Justice KK Ramakrishnan condoned the delay observing that the criterion for it “is the acceptable reason and not the extent of the delay”. The court imposed a cost of Rs 5 lakh on the Sivaganga collector, payable to the above individuals (legal heirs) who had filed the original suit in 1983.
The said family was in possession of the above land for several years and had constructed guest houses, polytechnic institutions, etc on it. The state took over the land under the Tamil Nadu Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, which later gave a portion of the land to several landless poor, while retaining the remaining as dry waste land.
In 1983, the family filed a suit before the District Munsif court in Devakottai and was granted title over the land in 1986. The same was confirmed by the subordinate court in Devakottai in 1988.
Challenging this, the government filed an appeal in 2005 but due to lack of follow-up by officials, it was dropped and a fresh appeal was filed in 2022 with a petition to condone the delay of 31 years.
The additional advocate general contended that the family had obtained the decree in a fraudulent manner by suppressing various facts. He explained that though an appeal was filed in 2005, the same could not be pursued due to collusion between then officials and the plaintiffs, change in governments, etc.
Accepting the explanation, the judge observed, “The criterion for condoning the delay is the acceptable reason and not the extent of the delay. The government has no special privilege to claim condonation of the delay.
At the same time, nature of the fraud that had been committed in the course of the trial has to be looked into and where the public interest is at stake and the cause also is reasonable, judicial indulgence is required at the time of considering the appeal filed by the government with huge delay as in the present case.”
