1 CA No.299/11 mpt IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPLICATION NO.299 of 2011 IN FIRST APPEAL St. NO.1826 of 2011 WITH FIRST APPEAL St. NO.1826 of 2011 Union of India ... Applicant versus (i) Deepak Desai (ii)The Oriental Insurance Co.Ltd. ... Respondents ... Ms.Madhavi Tavanandi i/b S.S. Kanetkar for the applicant CORAM : D.G. KARNIK, J DATED : 15th February 2011 P.C. 1. This civil application is for condonation of delay in filing of an appeal against an award passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal. The delay is substantial and more than one year and 4 months and in my view, it has not been satisfactorily explained. 2. The award was passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal on 17 June 2009. The matter was forwarded by the concerned department 2 CA No.299/11 to the Legal Cell, Head MG & AG on 11 July 2009 (averments made in paragraph no.4). The legal cell, Head MG & AG approached the Ministry of Law only on 19 December 2009 seeking an opinion whether an appeal needs to be filed. The Head of “Legal Cell, MG & AG” was sitting on the file doing nothing from 11 July 2009 to 19 December 2009. He neither took the decision to file an appeal nor did he chose to approach the Ministry of Law and Justice for a decision/opinion on the question whether appeal should be filed for a period of more than 5 months. What he was doing in the period of five months is not explained at all. The Ministry of Law and Justice acted promptly and replied within 10 days i.e. 29/12/2009 to file an appeal. However, thereafter, the appeal was actually filed on 19 January 2011 i.e after more than one year of the Law Ministry giving sanction to file an appeal. This delay of over one year is not satisfactorily explained. In the circumstances, the application is rejected summarily. Consequently, appeal is dismissed as barred by limitation. (D.G.KARNIK, J)