IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) FRIDAY, THE SEVENTH DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 24182 of 2001 Between: Banothu Manya , S/o Deva Das, R/o H.No. 1-4-2B, Sarathinagar Khammam Town Khammam District ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Co-operative Appellate Tribunal Rep. by its Secretary, Chandra Vihar,M.J.Road Hyderabad. 2 The General Manager, The Co-operative Central Bank Ltd., Khammam District. 3 The Manager, Rural Branch Primary Agricultural Co-operative Society P.S.R.Road Branch Khammam Town. 4 The Senior Inspector-cum- arbitrator, District Co- operative Central Bank Ltd.,Khammam 5 The Dy. Registrar, The Co-operative Central Bank Ltd., Khammam District ..RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR M.V.VENU FOR MR.KOWTURU VINAYA KUMAR Counsel for the Respondents: None appeared The Court made the following : O R D E R: This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of Certiorari to quash order dated 27-10-2001 in I.A.No.359 of 2001 in CTASR No.2365 of 2001. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner. No one represented respondents 2 to 5 despite service of notices on them. A certiﬁcate under Section 71 of the Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act, 1964 was issued against the petitioner by the competent authority to recover certain loan amounts borrowed by him from respondents 2 to 5 on 01-03- 1994. When E.P.No.7571 of 1993-94 was ﬁled for execution of the said certificate, the petitioner filed CTA No.172 of 2000 before the Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Tribunal (for short “the Tribunal”), Hyderabad. In the counter-aﬃdavit ﬁled on behalf of respondents 2 to 5, it was pleaded that the attachment made in the said E.P was in pursuance of the said certiﬁcate issued in their favour. Subsequently the petitioner ﬁled CTASR No.2365 of 2001 questioning the said certiﬁcate with a delay of 2552 days in filing the appeal. In support of the application for condonation of the delay, the petitioner pleaded that till respondents 2 to 5 ﬁled a counter-aﬃdavit in CTA No.172 of 2000, he was not aware of issuance of the certiﬁcate against him, as the same was not served on him, and that therefore, he could not ﬁle the appeal within the stipulated time. The said application was dismissed by the Tribunal. In its order, the Tribunal relied on the circumstance that the petitioner himself had ﬁled Xerox copy of the certiﬁcate and from this it inferred that the petitioner received the certiﬁcate, which was acknowledged by his wife, Smt G.Padmavathi. A careful perusal of the order passed by the Tribunal shows that it failed to verify from the record as to whether a copy of the certiﬁcate was served either on the petitioner or on his wife under proper acknowledgment. Such a course would have obviated the necessity of the Tribunal drawing surmises and conjectures, based on which it concluded that the petitioner’s wife received the certiﬁcate and the petitioner had knowledge of the same. In the absence of deﬁnite evidence of receipt of certiﬁcate by the petitioner of his wife, the Tribunal ought not to have refused to condone the delay merely because the delay was substantially long. At the hearing, it has come out that the petitioner has in all deposited 75% of the E.P amount. This factor also weighed with me in taking a lenient view in favour of the petitioner to give him a chance of contesting the validity of the certificate on merits. For the above mentioned reasons, the writ petition is allowed. The order of respondent No.1-Tribunal dated 27-10- 2001 in I.A. No.359 of 2001 in CTASR No.2365 of 2001 is set aside. I.A. No.359 of 2001 ﬁled by the petitioner for condonation of delay before the Tribunal stands allowed. The Tribunal shall entertain the appeal and dispose of the same on merits. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Dated 7th November, 2008 vrn