Case Name : State Of Madhya Pradesh v. Ramkumar Choudhary

According to a ruling by the Supreme Court, a plaintiff seeking to excuse a delay in filing an appeal must also provide an explanation for why the appeal was not filed within the allotted time frame. Stated differently, it is insufficient to provide an explanation for the delay from the time the limitation terminated. They must include an explanation for why the appeal was not submitted prior to the statute of limitations. The Court recognized that a plaintiff may wait until the last day of the statute of limitations to file an appeal, but if they do so, they must provide an explanation for why the appeal was not filed within that time frame.

When the State of Madhya Pradesh filed an appeal to excuse more than five-year delay in filing a second appeal, a bench consisting of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan issued the following observations. The bench noted, citing Ajit Singh Thakur Singh and Others v. State of Gujarat

There is another facet to the issue that we must not neglect or disregard. Over time, we have observed that whenever a request for a delay to be excused is made, whether by the state or a private litigant, the delay is sought to be explained from the moment the statute of limitations begins and, if there is a delay of, say, two, three, or four years, until the end of the same. If the statute of limitations is 90 days, for instance, the party requesting a pardon must provide an explanation for why it was unable to start the procedures within that time frame. It doesn’t matter what happened after the 91st day till the last. The court must take into account the reasons why the party was unable to file it between the first and the ninetieth days. Indeed, a party has the right to postpone filing an appeal until the final day of the statute of limitations. However, if it permits the restriction to run out and a sufficient reason argument is made for not filing the appeal sooner, the adequate cause must demonstrate that the appeal could not be filed in time due to an incident or circumstance that occurred prior to the limitation expiring. No situation or incident that occurs after the statute of limitations has passed can qualify as such a sufficient cause. The filing of the appeal may be further delayed by events or circumstances that occur after the statute of limitations has passed. However, the fact that the statute of limitations has been permitted to run out without an appeal being filed must be linked to an event that occurred during that time frame.