Prolonged appeal delay cannot be condoned without a plausible, evidence-supported sufficient cause.

The petitioner, a tenant, challenged an ex parte eviction order dated 10 February 2021 made by the Rent Control Authority, Jagdalpur.

She said she first learned of the order when she received an eviction warrant on 17 May 2025, and appealed under Section 10 of the Chhattisgarh Rent Control Act, 2011, seeking condonation of a delay of four years and five months.

The Rent Control Tribunal dismissed the condonation application and, consequently, the appeal.

The petitioner then brought this writ petition, alleging that she had not received the notices issued in the eviction proceedings and that limitation should run from the date she learned of the eviction order.

The respondents maintained that the notices bore the petitioner’s signatures and that she had not substantiated either her denial of service or her claimed date of knowledge.

1. Whether the Tribunal’s refusal to condone the four-year-and-five-month delay in filing the appeal warranted interference in writ jurisdiction, given the petitioner’s claim that she lacked notice or knowledge of the eviction order

2. Whether the petitioner established sufficient cause for the delay, including that she had not received the notices and learned of the eviction order only upon receipt of the warrant on 17 May 2025

Section 10 of the Chhattisgarh Rent Control Act, 2011 provides for an appeal from an order of the Rent Control Authority; the Tribunal considered whether the delay in filing that appeal should be condoned.

The Court applied the principle under Section 5 of the Limitation Act that delay may be condoned where sufficient cause is shown, while recognizing that the discretion is judicial and that interference with its exercise requires a basis such as arbitrariness or unreasonableness.

The Court considered Food Corporation of India v. Bhanu Lodh, (2005) 3 SCC 618, cited by the respondents in support of the proposition that an objection concerning what occurred before a court or authority should be raised before that forum.

It also considered Sheo Raj Singh v. Union of India, (2023) 10 SCC 531, concerning the discretionary nature of condonation under Section 5, and distinguished the petitioner’s reliance on Deepak Sona v. Amolak Singh Bhatia, W.P. (Art. 227) No. 340/2024, decided 25 April 2024, on the ground that no arbitrariness or unreasonableness had been shown here.

The Tribunal had examined four notices, dated 13 October, 4 November, 18 November and 16 December 2020, and found that the petitioner had acknowledged them by signing.

The petitioner had not disputed those signatures before the Tribunal, and the Court considered the claimed absence from town in December 2020 unsupported by material.

Nor had she produced material before the Tribunal to establish that she received the eviction warrant only on 17 May 2025 or had no earlier knowledge of the proceedings.

In those circumstances, the Court found no sufficient cause for the substantial delay and no arbitrariness or unreasonableness in the Tribunal’s decision to justify interference.

It held that no plausible explanation or sufficient cause had been shown for the four-year-and-five-month delay, and that the Tribunal’s order disclosed no ground for writ interference.

The writ petition was dismissed as devoid of merit, and the interim order dated 26 May 2025 was vacated.