Judgment of The Court: 16th & 20111 February, 2024
Judgment of The Court: 16th & 20111 February, 2024
AT MWANZA
(Gwae. J.1
MKUYE. 3.A.:
This an appeal against the decision in the Ruling of the High Court
290 of 2016. The brief background of the matter leading to this appeal
goes thus:
Goreshi were involved in a dispute before the Ward Tribunal for Mantare
the respondent had sought to redeem back a clan land that had been
the District Land and Housing Tribunal (DLHT) in which, his appeal was
equal to the purchase price of TZS. 700,000.00 that was paid out by the
appellant for purchase of the suit land. The respondent was also ordered
time for lodging the appeal had lapsed. He resorted to apply for
extension of time to lodge his appeal out of time, which, was refused
upon observation by the High Court that no sufficient cause for the delay
had been given. Aggrieved by the refusal to extend time, he applied for
and leave was granted to appeal to this Court, that being a requirement
by then. He has now lodged this appeal seeking to challenge the
appeal as hereunder:
"1. That, the Honourable Judge o f the High Court erred in iaw by
it on the day fixed for hearing of the appeal and, thus, paving a way for
so, he being a lay person. We, thus allowed the advocate for the
declaring his stance that he was contesting the appeal. He argued that
the appellant's contention that the Hon. Judge failed to consider the
39, 40 and 41 of the record of appeal where, he said, the learned Hon.
Judge considered the exhibits and analysed the dates in which the
appellant attended to the hospital for treatment and observed that the
the learned Hon. Judge for relying on technicalities, Mr. Sayi submitted
that he was unable to see where the technicalities were used by Hon.
to find that the appellant has failed to substantiate his appeal and
On his part, the appellant forcefully argued that the Hon. Judge did
not consider his exhibits showing that he was sick. He also assailed the
he argued that he was bereaved of his child although this fact did not
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Having examined the grounds of appeal and the rival submissions
from both sides, we think, the issue for this Court's determination is
High Court did not observe or consider that the delay was attributed to
his illness and subsequent recovering at his home place. He assailed the
learned High Court Judge for failure to consider the medical chits which
proved that he was sick. On the other hand, Mr. Sayi is of the view that
the learned High Court Judge considered such documents and came to
the conclusion that the appellant did not advance sufficient cause to
Our starting point would be to restate the obvious, that is, any
that there is no hard and fast rules as to what entails sufficient cause -
(both unreported).
application after becoming aware that time has lapsed; the absence of
any or valid explanation for the delay; lack of diligence on the part of the
Also, the Court when was faced with akin scenario in the case of
" i. That the applicant m ust account for a ll the period o f delay.
2. The delay should not be inordinate.
3. The applicant m ust show diligence and not apathy, negligence
or sloppiness in the prosecution o f the action that he intends
to take.
4. I f the court feels that there are other reasons such as the
existence o f a point o f law o f sufficient im portance such as
ille g a lity o f the decision sought to be challengd'.
The issue of the duty of the applicant to account for each day of
8
Manager, Tanzania Breweries Limited, Civil Application No. 6 of
In this case, the decision of the DLHT whose appeal was delayed
section 38 (1) of the Land Disputes Courts Act, Cap 216 R.E. 2002, an
appeal from the DLHT to the High Court is required to be lodged within
sixty days from the date when the decision was handed down. It follows,
therefore, that by simple calculation the appellant ought to have filed his
appeal by 24/7/2015 from when the decision was delivered. That was
not done. However, the application for extension of time, subject of this
appeal, was lodged on 7/11/2016 which was after the lapse of about
medical chits (KL. 2) showing that on diverse dates and intervals from
dispensary for treatment, which, is the area of the appellant's claim that
they were not considered. The medical chits as shown from pages 25,
26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 of the record of appeal reflect that he attended at
The said documents were discussed by the High Court Judge as reflected
[Emphasis added]
The learned Judge went on to find that the appellant did not
account for not only the delay from 30/6/2015 to 2/12/2015 but also
filed.
From the above revelation, we are in accord with Mr. Sayi that the
that prevented him to lodge his appeal within time. However, he was not
medical treatment continuously. It was also noted that the appellant did
that had he been serious enough he would have filed his appeal within
that period.
ii
We also note that during the hearing of the appeal, the appellant
lamented that the learned Judge blamed him for allegedly being treated
was not relied upon by the High Court in it's decision although the
respondent had raised such concern in his submission at the High Court.
In any case, even if the High Court said so, which is not the case, in our
advance another reason for the delay that he was bereaved of his child,
but in our view, this is a new ground which had never been averred in
we find no reason to fault the High Court's finding and we dismiss this
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justice. It is, however, unfortunate as was submitted by Mr. Sayi that
Appellate Jurisdiction Act, Cap 141 R.E. 2019 through the Written Laws
of the dictates of the law. In other words, as was held in some of our
much as there was no elaboration to this ground, we are of the view that
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In the result, in view of our discussion above, we are satisfied that
I. H. JUMA
CHIEF JUSTICE
R. K. MKUYE
JUSTICE OF APPEAL
A. M. MWAMPASHI
JUSTICE OF APPEAL
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