State of Jharkhand Vs. Basant Kumar Poddar (Mines Owner) and anr.

.....extended period of limitation maintainability - held, if the provision of a statute speaks of entertainment of appeal, it denotes that the appeal cannot be admitted to consideration unless other requirements are complied with. the provision of sub-section (1) of section 173 permits filing of an appeal against an award within 90 days with a rider in the first proviso that such appeal filed cannot be entertained unless the statutory deposit is made. the period of limitation is applicable only to the filing of the appeal and not to the deposit to be made. it, therefore, appears that an appeal filed under section 173 cannot be entertained i.e. cannot be admitted for consideration unless the statutory deposit is made and for this purpose the court has the discretion either to grant time to make the deposit or not. no formal order condoning the delay is necessary, an order of adjournment would suffice. the provisions of limitation embodied in the substantive provision of the sub-section (1) of section 173 of the act does not extend to the provision relating to the deposit of statutory amount as embodies in the first proviso. therefore an appeal filed within the period of limitation or within the extended period of limitation, cannot be admitted for hearing on merit unless the statutory deposit is made either with the memo of appeal or on such date as may be permitted by the court. no specific order condoning any delay for the purpose of deposit under first proviso to sub-section (1) of section 173 is necessary. [new india assurance co. ltd. v md. makubur rahman, 1993 (2) glr 430 and new india assurance co. ltd. v smt rita devi, 1997(2) glt 406, approved. new india assurance co. ltd. v birendra mohan de, 1995 (2) gau lt 218 (db) and union of india v smt gita banik, 1996 (2) glt 246, are not good law]. - ) that the central government approval was not required in respect to forest area already broken or cleared prior to the commencement of the act, the court below came.....order1. the case of the prosecution is that there was a lease in favour of the bihar state mineral development corporation given on 27th april, 1976 with respect to 134 acres of land of hotai forest area to carry on business operation after the enactment of f.c. act, 1980 and the accused persons were entitled to win the mines only in respect to land which was cleared and broken on 25th october 1980.2, further case of the prosecution is that on 25th october, 1980, the broken land in forest area was marked and identifted by pillars, but the accused persons won the mines and removed minerals from the mines which was beyond the forest area marked and identified on 25th october, 1980 and for that no permission was taken from the central government.3. the prosecution produced arid examined three witnesses, namely, parikchit pathak (pw 1); bhola manjhi (pw 2); and hari nandan shukla (pw 3) to establish its case. out of those three prosecution witnesses, two witnesses, pws 2 and 3 were formal witnesses.4. the defence on the other hand, also examined three witnesses, namely, banwari lal agrawal (dw 1); magnath mishra (dw 2) and upendra narayan singh in order to demolish the case of the prosecution produced letter no. 652/p (ext. a) and agreements (exts. b and b/1 in their support.5. the court below noticed that parikchit pathak (pw 1) deposed that on 11th june 1996 at about 3 p.m., he was at hotai forest area and saw some loose soil near the mining area. no specific evidence was produced by the prosecution in support of the allegation that the accused persons won the mines and extracted minerals beyond the area which were marked and identified on 25th october, 1980.6. in the aforesaid background and in view of the supreme court decision, reported in air 1985 sc 814 (state of bihar v. banshi ram and ors.) that the central government approval was not required in respect to forest area already broken or cleared prior to the commencement of the act, the court below came to a.....