TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2008 (8) TMI 900
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....one numbers of Pakistan and a sum of Rs. 30,000/- suspected to be Hawala money were also recovered from the respondent. It was found that the respondent had been frequently coming to Delhi and stayed at Welcome Guest House and used to make telephone calls to his contacts in Pakistan and collected money in Delhi which he used to transfer to Srinagar through carpet dealers at Kashmir and Commission agents for goats and thus, he actually got transferred Rs. 17-1/4 lacs through Ghayasuddin and Mohd. Ahad of Srinagar. The respondent was charge sheeted under Sections 121/121A/122/124-A/120-B of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short `IPC') on the above allegations of being a member of TUM and for conspiring in waging war against the Government of India. The respondent was thereafter tried in the Court of the Addl. Sessions Judge, Delhi in Sessions Case No.7/98. By order dated 30.10.1998 in Sessions Case No.7/98, the learned Addl. Sessions Judge discharged the accused at the threshold, holding that prima facie there was no legal evidence to show that the respondent has committed any of the alleged acts. Aggrieved, the appellant filed Criminal Revision Petition 356/2004, along with....
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....own to the Government which, in similar circumstances, is not shown to an individual suitor, one cannot but take a practical view of the working of the Government without being unduly indulgent to the slow motion of its wheels. 8. What constitutes sufficient cause cannot be laid down by hard and fast rules. In New India Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Shanti Misra (1975 (2) SCC 840) this Court held that discretion given by Section 5 should not be defined or crystallised so as to convert a discretionary matter into a rigid rule of law. The expression "sufficient cause" should receive a liberal construction. In Brij Indar Singh v. Kanshi Ram (ILR (1918) 45 Cal 94 (PC) it was observed that true guide for a court to exercise the discretion under Section 5 is whether the appellant acted with reasonable diligence in prosecuting the appeal. In Shakuntala Devi Jain v. Kuntal Kumari (AIR 1969 SC 575) a Bench of three Judges had held that unless want of bona fides of such inaction or negligence as would deprive a party of the protection of Section 5 is proved, the application must not be thrown out or any delay cannot be refused to be condoned. 9. In Concord of India Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Nirmala De....
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....made. The doctrine must be applied in a rational common sense pragmatic manner. When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred for the other side cannot claim to have vested right in injustice being done because of a non-deliberate delay. There is no presumption that delay is occasioned deliberately, or on account of culpable negligence, or on account of mala fides. A litigant does not stand to benefit by resorting to delay. In fact he runs a serious risk. Judiciary is not respected on account of its power to legalise injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so. Making a justice-oriented approach from this perspective, there was sufficient cause for condoning the delay in the institution of the appeal. The fact that it was the State which was seeking condonation and not a private party was altogether irrelevant. The doctrine of equality before law demands that all litigants, including the State as a litigant, are accorded the same treatment and the law is administered in an even-handed manner. There is no warrant for according a ste....
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....rnment, like any other litigant must take responsibility for the acts, omissions of its officers. But a somewhat different complexion is imparted to the matter where Government makes out a case where public interest was shown to have suffered owing to acts of fraud or bad faith on the part of its officers or agents and where the officers were clearly at cross-purposes with it. It was, therefore, held that in assessing what constitutes sufficient cause for purposes of Section 5, it might, perhaps, be somewhat unrealistic to exclude from the consideration that go into the judicial verdict, these factors which are peculiar to and characteristic of the functioning of the Government. Government decisions are proverbially slow encumbered, as they are, by a considerable degree of procedural red-tape in the process of their making. A certain amount of latitude is, therefore, not impermissible. It is rightly said that those who bear responsibility of Government must have "a little play at the joints". Due recognition of these limitations on governmental functioning - of course, within reasonable limits - is necessary if the judicial approach is not to be rendered unrealistic. It would, perh....