' RANA BHAGWANDAS, J.--- Petitioner seeks leave to appeal against the judgment of the Federal Service Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) dated 7-6-2002 dismissing his service appeal against removal from service of National Highway Authority, as his departmental appeal against the penalty was rejected as barred by 185 days.
2. Precisely stated, after service of a show-cause notice on the petitioner, obtaining his reply and enquiring into the charge of unauthorised absence from duty for a long period of time, competent authority ordered removal of the petitioner from service vide letter, dated 23-5-2001. For the first time, petitioner represented against this action through departmental appeal dated 24-12-2001, which was rejected by the appellate authority i,e, the Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Railways, as time-barred vide letter, dated 16-2-2002.
3. Sole ground urged by the petitioner in support of his prayer for condonation of delay before the Tribunal was that he being out of station, letter of removal from service was received by his brother, with whom he was not on good terms, and actually he came to know about the removal order after seven months. The Tribunal did not feel persuaded by this submission of the petitioner and observed that the petitioner had not acted diligently in pursuing his remedy by not making departmental appeal within the period prescribed by law and was, thus, rightly non-suited by the departmental authority. The Tribunal accordingly declined to condone the delay and without entering into merits of the appeal dismissed the same, hence this petition.
4. We have heard Mr. Akhlaq Ahmed Siddiqui, learned Advocateon-Record for the petitioner. He has reiterated the same argument, which was advanced before the Tribunal and rightly rejected for valid reasons.
5. If a person has been negligent and indolent in prosecuting his remedy before the proper forum, he is not entitled to indulgence of the Court, muchless enlargement of time by 185 days, more particularly; when his departmental representation was not entertained by the department itself. In our considered opinion, by not exercising discretion in favour of the petitioner, the Tribunal neither acted illegally nor unreasonably. There is no strong ground for interfering with the exercise of discretion by the Tribunal, which, on the face of it, was neither unfair nor illegal or unreasonable. It is well-settled that once a departmental appeal has been rejected as barred by time, service appeal would be incompetent, unless, for sufficient reasons, the Tribunal deems it fit to condone the delay.
The Tribunal has obviously decided otherwise to which hardly any exception can be taken.
6. In our view, no question of law of public importance is spelt out from the circumstances with the consequence that this petition is devoid of any merit and accordingly dismissed.