Claimants’ Land-Partition Challenge Fails After Nearly 12 Years In Civil Courts As P&H HC Upholds Refusal To Condon Delay

Partition proceedings concerning joint land were initiated in 1991. A Sanad Takseem was issued on 3 November 2008.

Rather than pursuing the appropriate revenue remedy, the appellants’ predecessor challenged it in a civil suit, which was dismissed; the appeal from that dismissal also failed.

The appellants later filed a revision before the Financial Commissioner with a request to condone a delay of 4,550 days, explaining that the Sanad had first been challenged before the wrong forum. The Financial Commissioner declined to entertain the revision, and the learned Single Judge dismissed the challenge to the revenue orders. The appellants then filed this Letters Patent Appeal 201 days late.

Section 16 of the Haryana Land Revenue Act, 1887 empowers revenue authorities to call for and examine records of proceedings before subordinate revenue officers; the court held that the power cannot be treated as permitting a revision to be entertained at any time regardless of inordinate, unexplained delay.

Section 158 was relied on as barring civil-court jurisdiction over matters within the revenue authorities’ domain.

Under Esha Bhattacharjee v. Managing Committee of Raghunathpur Nafar Academy, (2013) 12 SCC 649, “sufficient cause” is to be construed liberally to advance substantial justice, but negligence, deliberate inaction, and lack of bona fides remain relevant; there is no general protection against a litigant’s or counsel’s mistakes.

The predecessor’s choice to bring a civil suit challenging the Sanad, despite the statutory revenue framework, did not satisfactorily explain the nearly 12-year delay in pursuing the revision; the court also noted that the appellants did not claim to have been deprived of ordinary legal advice.

The stated reason of having approached the wrong forum was therefore insufficient to require the Financial Commissioner to entertain the revision.

Separately, the explanation that appellant Kala Wati was suffering from age-related ailments did not account for why appellants 2 to 6 failed to file the appeal in time, and no satisfactory explanation was provided for them.

Applying the principles in Esha Bhattacharjee, the court found no basis to disturb the refusal to condone delay.

The Letters Patent Appeal was dismissed, and all pending civil miscellaneous applications were disposed of.