State of Madhya Pradesh Vs Ramkumar Choudhary (Supreme Court of India)
Supreme Court imposed cost of Rs. 1,00,000, for misusing Court’s time, on Government of Madhya Pradesh since Government preferred an appeal against well-reasoned and conscious decisions not condoning delay of 1788 days since no satisfactory reason was adduced for the delay.
Facts- This Special Leave Petition is filed by the petitioner – State of Madhya Pradesh against the judgment dated 24.01.2024 passed by the Hon’ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur in Second Appeal No.2895 of 2019, whereby, the High Court dismissed the appeal on the ground that it was filed with inordinate delay of 5 years 10 months and 16 days and no satisfactory reason was adduced for the same.
Conclusion- The present case is one such case, wherein, enormous delay of 1788 days occasioned in preferring the second appeal due to the lapses on the part of the officials functioning under the State, though valuable Government lands were involved. Therefore, we direct the State to streamline the machinery touching the legal issues, offering legal opinion, filing of cases before the Tribunal / Courts, etc., fix the responsibility on the officer(s) concerned, and penalize the officer(s), who is/are responsible for delay, deviation, lapses, etc., if any, to the value of the loss caused to the Government. Such direction will have to be followed by all the States scrupulously.
