A change in a society’s management does not excuse delay in seeking restoration.

The Society’s petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, challenging an arbitral award dated 7 August 2019, was dismissed for non-prosecution on 9 January 2024.

The Society claimed that its members learned of the dismissal and the ensuing execution proceedings only at a meeting on 27 April 2025, attributing the lack of earlier information to the former President.

Individual members first sought restoration, but their application was dismissed on 10 July 2025 for lack of locus standi; the Society then filed its own restoration application on 19 September 2025, accompanied by the present application seeking condonation of 586 days’ delay.

The respondent opposed condonation, pointing to pending execution proceedings.

Whether the Society had shown sufficient grounds to condone the 586-day delay in filing its restoration application.

Whether the Society’s application to restore the Section 34 petition could proceed when it was filed beyond the 30-day limitation period.

Order IX Rule 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, was invoked as the procedural basis for seeking restoration of the petition dismissed for non-prosecution.

Article 122 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963, prescribes a 30-day limitation period for an application to restore a suit or appeal dismissed for default, which the Court applied to the restoration application.

The Court also considered Section 39 of the Haryana Cooperative Societies Act, 1984, as quoted in the earlier order: a registered cooperative society is a body corporate, separate from its members, capable of conducting and defending legal proceedings in its own name.

The judgment states no separate test or precedent governing condonation of delay.

The Court rejected the Society’s explanation that a change in management and the former President’s failure to inform members accounted for the delay. It reasoned that a society is a juristic entity and should not be permitted to rely on the negligence of its previous management, as successive managements could otherwise advance different explanations for non-prosecution.

Given the length of the delay and the respondent’s progress with execution of the award, the Court found that restoration would cause serious prejudice and that the grounds advanced were insufficient to condone the delay.

Consequently, it dismissed the Society’s restoration application as having been filed beyond the 30-day period prescribed by Article 122 of the Limitation Act, 1963.