Lucknow Bench imposes ₹1 lakh costs on Uttar Pradesh for a delay of more than three decades in filing a counter affidavit

30 September 2026

Justice Garima Prashad of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court decided Uma Kant Tripathi v C/M Bahraich Coop Bank Ltd, cited as 2026:AHC-LKO:67510.
On 2 May 1994 the court had directed the respondents to file counter affidavits within six weeks, kept the impugned order in abeyance, and directed that the petitioner be allowed to work and paid his salary.
The court recorded that opposite parties 3 and 4, whose action formed the basis of the impugned orders, filed their counter affidavit only after further orders were passed in 2025, and that no explanation was offered for this delay of more than three decades.
The petitioner's case was that the interim relief was never implemented.
The court held that the state cannot avoid responsibility for the lapse merely because the petitioner failed to establish his substantive claim.
The delay, it said, deprived the court of timely assistance from the authorities concerned.
Dismissing the writ petition on merits and discharging the interim order, the court directed opposite parties numbered 3 and 4 to ensure that ₹1 lakh is paid to the petitioner within six weeks.