Chhattisgarh High Court: a writ petition must still be filed within a reasonable time

Dismissing a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, the Chhattisgarh High Court (Justice Bibhu Datta Guru) held that although no limitation period is prescribed for filing a writ petition, it must still be filed within a reasonable time, and stale claims are liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches. The petitioner, son of a former employee of South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. who had retired in 2002 and died in 2015, sought a direction to the company to consider a representation his late father had allegedly submitted in 1996 claiming unpaid dues for 1989–1994. The Court found the petition was filed after an inordinate and unexplained delay of more than three decades, with no proof the representation had ever reached the company and no satisfactory explanation for the delay.

It held that a person invoking the High Court's extraordinary and discretionary writ jurisdiction must approach the court with due diligence and within a reasonable time, since ignoring prolonged delay could unsettle matters that had already attained finality, and that a litigant who sleeps over an alleged right is bound to suffer. The writ petition was accordingly dismissed in limine.