MP HC Restores Refusal To Condone Landowner’s 3-Year Delay In Boundary Appeal, Citing Notice Bearing His Signature and No Sufficient Explanation

The petitioner obtained a Tahsildar’s order dated 28 December 2018 approving a demarcation and boundary-fixation proposal after the respondent did not appear in the proceedings.

The respondent appealed in December 2021, asserting that he learned of the order only in November 2021, and sought condonation of delay under Section 5 of the Limitation Act.

The Sub-Divisional Officer rejected the application, noting that the record showed notice bearing the respondent’s signature. The Additional Collector, in revision, set aside that decision and remitted the matter to permit the appeal to proceed.

The petitioner challenged the revisional order under Article 226. The surviving dispute concerned Survey No. 7/1; the Tahsildar’s order concerning Survey No. 91/1/1 had not been further challenged.

Article 226 of the Constitution provides the High Court’s jurisdiction to review the impugned revisional order.

Under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, an appellant seeking to pursue an appeal filed beyond the prescribed period must establish sufficient cause for the delay; the length of delay is not decisive by itself, but the explanation must be assessed on its merits.

A plea concerning denial of an opportunity to be heard may be relevant to the merits of an appeal, but does not dispense with the separate requirement to explain the delay.

A revisional authority interfering with rejection of a condonation application must address whether the reasons given by the subordinate authority disclose a legal infirmity.

The respondent filed his appeal approximately three years after the Tahsildar’s order and relied on his claimed discovery of the order in November 2021.

However, the Sub-Divisional Officer had found that notice in the original proceedings bore the respondent’s signature and rejected his explanation as unsatisfactory.

The Additional Collector did not adequately examine whether that finding or the Sub-Divisional Officer’s reasons were legally infirm; a general preference for hearing the dispute on its merits could not substitute for a sufficient-cause determination.

The claimed denial of a hearing could bear on the appeal’s merits but could not, without an adequate explanation for the delay, justify allowing the time-barred appeal to proceed.

The Court made no determination on the merits of the objections concerning Survey No. 7/1 and left undisturbed the Tahsildar’s order concerning Survey No. 91/1/1.

No order as to costs was made.