New Delhi, Oct. 11 -- The Supreme Court has hailed a 2025 judgment by justice JB Pardiwala as the "last nail in the coffin" of its 1987 ruling that it said has been repeatedly invoked to secure condonation of delay, warning that an overly liberal approach to limitation has kept the country "driven back" for decades by allowing litigation to continue despite inordinate delays. A bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu on Friday criticised the Supreme Court's decision in Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag Vs Mst Katiji, which condoned a delay of just four days in filing an appeal, saying the judgment had since been treated as a "panacea" for virtually every application seeking condonation of delay. "Nobody considers what Justice Venkatachaliah wrote in 1994," remarked Justice Datta, referring to a subsequent judgment by former Chief Justice of India MN Venkatachaliah that warned against allowing bureaucratic indifference to defeat the government's own legal interests. "And the last nail in the coffin is Justice Pardiwala's judgment in the Shivamma case," he added. Justice Datta's remarks underscore a judicial push towards stricter enforcement of limitation periods, with the court signalling that the need to do substantial justice cannot become a licence for litigants, including government bodies, to disregard deadlines and reopen disputes after years of inaction. The bench made the observations while dismissing appeals by Karvy Stock Broking Limited and its former chairman and managing director C Parthasarathy against orders of the SAT refusing to condone delays in challenging penalties imposed by SEBI. "We are not going to go by any other judgment. We will go by our own judgment," said the bench, referring to the principles laid down by the Supreme Court on how applications for condonation of delay and challenges to orders granting such condonation must be examined. htc...