A self-serving, unsigned settlement deed does not establish sufficient cause for a 2,001-day appeal delay.

The respondents’ suit, O.S. No. 241 of 2010, was decreed in their favour on 15 November 2016.

The petitioners filed a first appeal in 2022 with an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963, seeking condonation of a 2,001-day delay. The First Appellate Court dismissed the application. The petitioners challenged that dismissal under Section 115 CPC, relying on an alleged release deed dated 23 October 2017, photographs of jewellery, medical records, and the Covid-19 pandemic to explain the delay.

Whether the petitioners established “sufficient cause” under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963, to condone the 2,001-day delay in filing the appeal.

Whether the First Appellate Court’s refusal to condone the delay warranted interference under Section 115 CPC.

Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 permits an appeal filed after limitation to be admitted if the applicant satisfies the court that there was “sufficient cause” for not filing it within time.

Section 115 CPC provides the basis for the revision petition challenging the First Appellate Court’s order. The judgment cited no precedents; its assessment turned on whether the petitioners’ evidence adequately explained the delay.

The Court found that the alleged release deed was signed by the petitioners but not by the respondent who was said to have executed it, making it self-serving and insufficient to establish a compromise; photographs of jewellery likewise did not show that the respondent had received or accepted it.

The medical records predated the decree and therefore did not explain the subsequent delay, while no adequate reason was given for why the other petitioners could not act in time. The Court also rejected the reliance on the pandemic as insufficient, in the circumstances, to cure the unexplained delay. It concluded that the evidence did not establish sufficient cause and that the First Appellate Court had properly considered the material.

It dismissed the Civil Revision Petition and the connected miscellaneous petition, with no order as to costs. It observed that, if the respondents accepted the petitioners’ settlement proposal, the parties remained at liberty to have a settlement recorded notwithstanding the dismissal.