1991 (6) TMI 132

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....e or the other ground. When this matter had come up for hearing on 14-1-1991 Shri M.K. Jain, Managing Director of the Appellant Company emphasised as per letter dated 12-1-1991 of their submission that delay was mainly due to the negligence and omission on the part of the Advocate and requested for some time to enable him to get an affidavit of Advocate explaining the delay in filing the appeal. On granting time he has not filed any affidavit but produced a letter dated 4-3-1991 issued by M/s. Kantawala & Co., Advocates & Solicitors, Bombay explaining the delay which is in the form of opinion. 3. The impugned order dated 31-3-1987 was received by the appellants on 25-4-1987 and the appeal required to be filed within 3 months from the dat....

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....o December, 1988. 4. In the letter dated 4-3-1991 given by the Advocates it was stated that they have sent the appeal papers for signatures through Courier Service but in turn the papers were not received and hence could not be filed. They made enquiries at Courier Service Office but to their surprise and shock it was found that the said Courier closed down their office long time back and, therefore, there was nobody responsible who could inform about the package contained the appeal sent to the appellants at Delhi. The letter was concluded stating that it was neither inadvertance on the part of the Advocate nor on appellants but delay caused was due to the act of couriers and this explanation would amount to a sufficient explanation for....

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....and the same were lying in the office of the Advocates with the draft upto 20-6-1988. It was stated in the letter issued by the Advocate that the appeal papers were sent through the courier service but same was not received back and attributed the negligence on the part of courier service who failed in their duty. It is not clear whether the papers were misplaced in courier service or delay caused due to the negligence and omission on the part of the advocate as it was alleged by the appellants at the first instance. Detail of the date chart is not forthcoming either in the application or in the letter issued by the Advocates to show on what date the appellants have handed over the papers to the Advocates and in turn on what date the Advoca....