Case: Siris Chandro Mondal vs. Sunil Kumar Mondal
Reference: 67 DLR (2015) 432
Synopsis:
According to the long-standing practice of the Supreme Court, the limitation period for filing a civil revision is the same as appeals, viz. 90 days and for condonation of delay reasonable explanation for each day of delay must be given specifically and no vague or general statements in that regard will be accepted.”
Facts of the Case:
The respondents as plaintiffs filed a partition suit before the Assistant Judge Court, Narail and after hearing the suit was decreed in favour of them. Thereafter, being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the judgment and decree the petitioner as defendant preferred an appeal before the Joint District Judge Court. The learned Judge affirmed the judgment and decree of the trial court but with some minor modification. After that, the defendant-appellant being aggrieved by the order of the appellate court preferred the instant Civil Revision followed by a petition for condonation of delay for 259 days under section 5 of the Limitation Act,1908.
Arguments:
No one appeared on behalf of the petitioner to support the Rule. The respondents submitted that, the appeal was decided in presence of learned Advocate of both parties, as such, the defendant had knowledge about the said judgment and decree of the appellate court below but even then, they did not file the revision application in time.
They also submitted that, there is not any cogent reason and ground in the petition for condonation of delay and the petitioner failed to explain the delay of each day. Moreover, there is a generic excuse that since the defendant-appellant has been living in a remote area, they could not contact the learned advocate in time and as a result the revision could not be preferred in time. The Respondent side argued that such vague argument cannot be treated as sufficient ground for condonation of delay. Rather this is an indication about the negligence and laches of the defendant-petitioner in the filing of the revision in time.
So, the delay should not be condoned.
Judgment:
In the petition the defendant-petitioners narrated 2 reasons for delay. The first one is, since they have been living in the remote area of Kalia Upazila under Narail District, they could not come at Narail town in time. And the second one is that, they did not know about the law of limitation. After considering the petition carefully, the High Court Division rejected both grounds.
The HCD held that, nowadays no place/area within the territorial jurisdiction of Bangladesh can be considered as a place of remote area. Moreover, the petitioners did not even state, what was the distance between their homestead and the district town of Narail.
And so far as the second ground is concerned, the common law principle is that, ignorance of law is no excuse at all.
In the law of limitation there is not any prescribed time limit for filing a civil revision under section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. But it is the long-standing practice that, the time schedule for filing of appeal, is considered as the time schedule for filing civil revision which is 90 days according to article 156 of the Limitation Act, 1908.
The position of the Indian Courts is same in this matter; In Muthu Chettiar v. Narayanan Chettiar, AIR 1928 Mad 528 (530) the Madras High Court held that;
“..the civil revision petitions should be filed within the same period as appeals, viz., 90 days. That rule was framed not on the ground that the period of limitation for filing revision petitions was 90 days, but that revisional jurisdiction being within the discretion of the High Court, it would not consider a civil revision petition filed after that date.”
Furthermore, it is also settled principle that in appropriate cases, the court can entertain the civil revision where there appears no intentional negligence on the part of the petitioners in filing the revision. The petitioner in the instant case failed to show that the delay in filling was not intentional or due to negligence and merely gave a general explanation and not on day-to-day basis. It is not a sufficient explanation within the meaning as contemplated in section 5 of the Limitation Act [Shomurunessa vs. Md. Musa Mia, (58 DLR 228)].
So, the Court rejected the application for condonation of delay and as such the earlier granted rule was discharged.
Conclusion:
Although the limitation petition for filing Civil Revision in the High Court Division is not prescribed in the Limitation Act or any other Statute, based on the long-standing practice it is settled that, the limitation period for Civil revision is the same as Appeal, viz. 90 days under article 156 of the Limitation Act, 1908.
Another important point which was stated by the HCD in this case is that, in an application for condonation for delay, the applicant must give a reasonable explanation for each day and any vague or general statement would not be considered as sufficient explanation within the meaning as contemplated in section 5 of the Limitation Act.
Umme Wahida Akhtar
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As far as I know an appeal is filed to the District Judge if the value of the case is not more than 5 lakhs . Here u mention that the appeal was filed to the JDJ . Would u plz clear it to me ??
In this very case, in the DLR it is mentioned that “the appeal was heard by the Joint District Judge, Narail”.
And it is also right that – if the value of the case is not more than 5 lakhs, appeal is filed to District Judge.
However , under sec-22 of the Civil Courts Act, DJ may exercise his power of transferring appeals. As under this section DJ has the power of transferring appeals from Senior Assistant/Assistant Judge court to Joint District Judge Court.
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thanks for the very useful judgement.