The Haryana government was criticised on November 3 by a single bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for disregarding the Limitation Act and causing excessive delays in filing appeals.

While refusing to give the government a pass because the case file was misplaced during interdepartmental discussions, Justice Deepak Gupta's single bench stated:- " In large number of cases, the Government seeks to condone the delay on the similar grounds. Despite repeated directions given by this Court as well as by the Hon'ble Apex Court in plethora of authorities, there appears to be no change in the attitude of the State Government. The appeals are filed with impunity by the Government with huge delays and delay is sought to be condoned by assuming as if there is no statute like Limitation Act or under the assumption that application for whatever delay, will be condoned by the Court. "

The bench went on to say that even though a specific official was alleged to have lost the case file, no action was taken against him. Therefore, it stated that the State cannot be permitted to file an appeal with a delay of more than 3 years, without bringing to record any facts as to the action taken against the erring officers/officials, simply by stating that file moved from one office to another for seeking opinion and then was lost by one of the officials.

"Rarely any action is taken against erring officials/public servants for their inaction of not taking the decision well within time resulting in huge delays. This practice must be put to stop."

The court was considering a petition for review of an additional district judge's decision to excuse the state's 1066-day delay in choosing an appeal against the granting of a mandatory and perpetual injunction in favour of the petitioner in this case.

The Trial Court issued a ruling on the case in 2014. In December 2017, the State of Haryana submitted an appeal. According to the petitioner, this was merely an effort to harass him.

Case Title: Rohitash Yadav v. State of Haryana and Others

Citation: CR-7696-2019 (O&M)

Link:- https://phhc.gov.in/download_file.php?auth=L2RhdGEwMS9hcHAvb3JhY2xlL3Byb2R1Y3QvMTFnL2FwYWNoZS9wZGYvZm8vQ1JfNzY5Nl8yMDE5XzMwXzExXzIwMjJfRklOQUxfT1JERVIucGRm