1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY, APPELLATE SIDE NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR C. A. F. NO. 2252 OF 2010 IN FIRST APPEAL ST. NO. 9981 OF 2010 [Vishwanath Vinayakrao Kalalkar & Ors. Vs. M. S. R. T. C. Amravati] Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court orders or directions and Registrar's orders Court's or Judge's Orders Shri P. S. Patil Adv for applicant. Shri A. S. Mehadia Adv for non applicant/respondent. CORAM: .R. M. SAVANT J. Dated: 21 st JANUARY, 2011. By the above civil application applicants seek condonation of delay of 1805 days in filing appeal. The reasons for the delay have been mentioned in the civil application. The sum and substance of the reasons can be culled out from para 3 and 4 of the application. The case of the applicants is, that the applicant no.3 had taken the responsibility of engaging counsel etc. and accordingly she had handed over the papers of the case to the counsel. It is further the case of the applicants that relying on the assurance of the counsel that he has filed the case the applicants did not make any further enquiry. There after in the month of January 2010 2 Advocate to whom the papers were handed over namely Ashish Wankhede expired and the applicants came to know about it in the month of March 2010. Therefore the applicants rushed to the office of the said counsel to get back the case papers and hand them over to another counsel. This has resulted in the delay of 1805 days. A perusal of the said reasons as can be seen do not disclose as to on which dates the applicants handed over the papers to the counsel. The delay is of 1805 days and the applicants are therefore obliged to make out a sufficient cause for condonation of such a huge delay, the application is bereft of any particulars. The applicants have filed the above First Appeal against the order of Commissioner, Workmen's Compensation dated 06.05.2005. The deceased was working with Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation i.e. the respondent herein as conductor. It appears that on the death of Devendra @ Ashok Kalalkar, the applicant no.3 Shobha Kalalkar i.e. his wife has been granted employment on compassionate basis. Rest of the heirs of the deceased employee also appear to be major, therefore the reasons mentioned in the application for the huge delay of 1805 days cannot be accepted. In my view sufficient cause for condonation of delay has not been made out. Be that as it may, since the matter arose out of the Workmen's Compensation Act on account of the death of Devendra @ Ashok I have considered the matter from the angle of the merits of the orders passed by the Commissioner, Workmen's Compensation. The said Devendra died on 3 account of the fact that he had fallen into a well and had died on account of drowning, the Commissioner has recorded a finding that the death has not occurred during and in the course of employment. There was material before the Court that the said Devendra was in the habit of consuming liquor and the learned Commissioner has referred to the postmortem report as well as police report which was submitted to the Depot Manager. The record does not disclose that any grievance was made by the family as regards the said reports. In the circumstances even considering the order passed by the Commissioner, no useful purpose would be served assuming that some indulgence is to be shown to the applicants for condoning the huge delay of 1805 days. Apart from the said fact it is undisputed that the wife of deceased Devendra i.e. applicant no.3 has been employed on compassionate basis. Hence taking an over all view of the matter case for condonation of delay has not been made out and the application for condonation of delay is therefore liable to be rejected and is accordingly rejected. Reliance placed by the learned counsel for the applicants on the following judgments: 1] 1990 ACJ 523 in the matter of Maharashtra State Road Trans. Corporation Vs. Tulsabai Tukaram Kadave and Others; 2] 2004 ACJ 1639 in the matter of Branch Manager, New India Assurance Co. Ltd. Vs. Siddappa and Others and 3] 2009 ACJ 1567 in the matter of H. P. State Forest Corporation Ltd. Vs. 4 Narmada Devi and Others, which are on the merits of the matter are misplaced in view of the fact that the fact situation in those cases stands apart from the fact situation in the instant case and more especially in the teeth of the observations made by the Commissioner in the impugned order. The Civil Application is rejected. JUDGE svk 5 6 7