Limitation Act applicable to State: HC

SHILLONG: The full Bench of the High Court of Meghalaya has ruled that the Limitation Act, 1963 applies to the entire State including the tribal areas of Autonomous Districts or regions.
The Indian Limitation Act, 1963 relates to filing of review petition in the Court within a stipulated time and it was exempted in the past in Meghalaya’s autonomous areas.
The Court was hearing a review petition filed by Shella Action Committee, a rally of Shella village natives against the State of Meghalaya and others on the matter related to Lafarge company.
While counsel BM Roy Dolloi was present for the petitioner, ND Chullai with H. Kharmih represented the respondents and VGK Kynta, senior advocate was present on behalf of Lafarge.
According to the full Bench, an application for review of an order passed by the High Court in the proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India should ordinarily be filed within a period of 30 days from the date of making of the order but it would always remain open for the Court to entertain the review application filed beyond the period of 30 days if the applicant satisfies the Court that he had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period. With this, the application seeking condonation of delay in filing the review application will now be placed before a Division Bench of the Court for consideration.
While concluding, the Court put on record its appreciation that several members of the Bar indeed put across different viewpoints and rendered valuable assistance to the Court in determination of the questions related to the Limitation Act.
The petitioner filed the review application on December 11, 2014, seeking review of the order dated March 5, 2014 as passed in PIL whereby the proceedings in the PIL were closed with the observation that no further directions were required to be issued in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Limited versus Union of India and others.
The petitioner earlier attempted to question the order in the PIL by way of a petition for special leave to appeal before the Supreme Court but, on October 27, 2014, sought permission to withdraw, so as to file a review application in the High Court because, according to the petitioner, the issues involved in PIL were not similar to those involved in Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Limited. Taking note of the submissions so made, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition for special leave to appeal as withdrawn, but while providing that in case of rejection of the review application, it would be open for the petitioner to approach the Supreme Court again against the order in the PIL.
Thereafter, the petitioner filed the review application in the High Court on December 11, 2014 with an application for condonation of delay of 16 days which was found carrying rather objectionable expressions and hence, was rejected by a Division Bench of the High Court on July 27, 2015 but with liberty to the petitioner for filing a fresh application. The petitioner has filed the fresh application on August 27, 2015, again with the prayer for condonation of delay of 16 days in filing the review application. A question regarding the starting point of limitation was raised during the course of consideration of the application and the office later on reported that the review application was delayed by a period of 249 days.