Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court on Tuesday dismissed a second appeal filed in a long-running dispute over the ownership of properties belonging to the 150-year-old Badamath religious institution in Sitamau in Mandsaur. The court upheld the earlier findings of both the trial court and the first appellate court, ruling that the appeal was time-barred and filed by a person lacking locus standi.
The appellants had challenged earlier decisions affirming Mahant Deepakgiri’s ownership rights over the math’s agricultural land and buildings.
The court noted that the first appeal, filed in 2020, should have been submitted within 30 days of the trial court’s 2018 judgment. Even after excluding the period required to obtain copies, the appeal was delayed by nearly three years and the explanation offered was found insufficient. The judge cited Supreme Court precedents emphasizing that delay could not be condoned without “sufficient cause.”
The appellants had argued that they became aware of the judgment only in 2020 when they learnt about the land being sold and converted into plots. However, the court held that a public notice had been issued in 2011 during trial proceedings, indicating that the appellants “knew or ought to have known” about the case.
The high court also held that the appellant was not an “aggrieved person” entitled to file the appeal, since he was not a party to the original representative suit and failed to prove any legal interest in the math. Allegations of collusion between the plaintiffs and defendants were rejected as unsupported by evidence.
The trial court had earlier ruled that Badamath was a private family math and that Mahant Deepakgiri, adopted in 1972, legally succeeded to the property owned by his predecessors. The first appellate court had dismissed the appeal on the ground of limitation.
Upholding these findings, the high court concluded that there was no legal error in the previous judgments and dismissed the second appeal along with all pending applications.
