Judgment: 1. Rule. By consent, Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent, heard finally. 2. The petitioner has been externed from Ahmednagar District, by an order dated 29-11-2013, passed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Ahmednagar, in exercise of the powers under Section 56 of the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951 [For short, "the Police Act"]. The petitioner has filed an appeal against the order of externment, as contemplated under Section 60 of the Police Act. The petitioner has also made a prayer in the appeal that, pending hearing and final disposal of the appeal, the operation and execution of the order of externment be stayed. 3. The grievance of the petitioner is that, the appellate authority is not passing any orders either in the appeal or on the application for stay separately filed by the petitioner, apart from the prayer for stay made in the memo of appeal itself. 4. Since the appeal is still pending and since the correctness, legality and propriety of the order of externment would be examined by the appellate authority, the only limited question that arises for the time being is, whether the procedure adopted by the appellate authority, namely, of not passing any orders on the stay application, and deferring hearing of the stay application and appeal for a long time, is proper and just. In my opinion, such a procedure cannot be held to be reasonable or fair. The appellate authority is expected to decide the appeal expeditiously and in any case, if the same cannot be done, to decide the application for stay, expeditiously. Otherwise, making of the application for stay would be rendered futile and it would amount to rejecting the application for stay without considering the merits thereof. 5. After hearing the learned Counsel for the petitioner, and the learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondents, it appears proper to dispose of the petition as follows : The appellate authority shall decide the stay application filed by the petitioner, within a period of 15 days from the date of receipt of this order. The petitioner shall appear before the appellate authority on 15th January 2014. 6. The petition is disposed of in the aforesaid terms. Rule is made absolute accordingly. 7. All concerned to act upon certified copy / authenticated copy of this judgment. Certified copy / authenticated copy expedited.