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2012 DIGILAW 718 (UTT)

JITENDRA K. AGGARWAL v. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

2012-12-03

SUDHANSHU DHULIA

body2012
JUDGMENT Hon’ble Sudhanshu Dhulia, J. (Oral) 1. Heard Mr. J.P. Joshi, Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Paresh Tripathi, Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State of Uttarkhand. 2. The petitioner was appointed as a public Notary by the State Government in the year 2001 which was for a period of five years. Subsequently the license for public notary was renewed for another period of five years and as per the second renewal the license was to expire on 11.12.2011. As per the Rules the petitioner should have applied for its renewal i.e. if he wanted renewal of the license, well in advance, and Rule 8B of the Notaries Rules, 1956 prescribes that such an application must have reached to the authorities before three months from the date of expiry of the license. The petitioner failed to do so. In fact, instead of three months in advance, the petitioner applied for renewal of license for public notary on 11.9.2012 i.e. after nine months of the expiry of the said license. The Additional Legal Remembrancer, Government of Uttarakhand vide his order dated 31.10.2012 (copy of which was sent to the learned District Judge, Dehradun) has stated that as per the provisions of law such an application for renewal must come three months prior to the date of expiry of the license and since it has come after nine months of the date of expiry of the license and since there is no provision for considering such application after expiry of its period of validity, the application of the petitioner cannot be considered. In fact the application of the petitioner for renewal of the license has been rejected. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner relies upon Rule 8B of the Notaries Rules, 1956, which reads as under : “8B. Renewal of Certificate of Practice The certificate of practice issued under sub-rule (4) of Rule 8 may be renewed for a further period of five years on payment of prescribed fee. An application for renewal of Certificate of Practice shall be submitted to the appropriate Government before three months from the date of expiry of its period of validity: Provided that the appropriate Government may, after considering the reasons stated in the application, relax the condition of submission of application for renewal of certificate of practice before the above specified period.” 4. The proviso to the aforesaid Rule clearly stipulates that though the application must reach to the authorities three months well in advance yet a discretion has been given to the appropriate Government that in case there is a delay it may consider the reasons, and it has got powers to relax the condition of submission of application for renewal of certificate as well. The proviso to Rule 8B gives wide powers to the appropriate Government which can be exercised in a given case where, inter alia, in such matters the ground for delay of such a renewal application is genuine and bonafide and is backed up by sufficient evidence. 5. This Court feels that the concerned authority i.e. the Additional Legal Remembrancer has not applied his mind to the said proviso while rejecting the application of the petitioner for renewal of the license. Therefore, there will be no useful purpose for keeping the writ petition pending before this Court. The writ petition is disposed of at this stage itself with the direction to the concerned authority of the appropriate Government to consider the application of the petitioner for renewal of the license considering the parameters laid down in Rule 8B of the Notaries Rules, 1956, and if the petitioner is able to substantiate that the grounds for delay in filing the application for renewal of license were bona fide and he was actually delayed due to valid reasons, while filing the application in time, the appropriate authority shall consider for renewal of the license of the petitioner. The needful be done as expeditiously as possible. 6. With the directions as above, writ petition is disposed of. 7. No order as to costs.