The Court made these observations while dismissing an appeal challenging a Himachal Pradesh High Court order, whereby the High Court had rejected the appellant’s plea to condone a delay of 254 days.
“The only reason assigned by the appellant for the delay of 254 days in filing the First Appeal was that he was not having sufficient funds to pay the court fee!”, the Supreme Court noted.
However, the bench proceeded to point out that the appellant could have filed the appeal on time under Section 149, CPC.
“Even it is presumed for the sake of argument that the appellant was short of funds, at the relevant point of time and was not able to pay court fee, nothing barred him from filing the appeal as there is provision under the law for filing a defective appeal (referring to Section 149 CPC), i.e., an appeal which is deficient as far as court fee is concerned, provided the court fee is paid within the time given by the Court”, the Court said.
Source: Barandbench
