Suleiman R. Bakar vs Chief Secretary & Others (Civil Appeal No. 2050 of 2025) [2026] TZCA 627 (3 June 2026)

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF TANZANIA AT DODOMA (CORAM: WAMBALI. J.A.. MAIGE. J.A. And MDEMU. J. A.^ t CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2050 OF 2025 SULEIMAN R. BAKAR..................................................................... APPELLANT VERSUS THE CHIEF SECRETARY.......................................................... 1 st RESPONDENT THE GOVERNING BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS EDUCATION .....................................2 nd RESPONDENT THE ATTORNEY GENERAL..................................... . ........ . ......3 rd RESPPNDENT (Appeal from the Ruling and Order of the High Court of Tanzania, Main Registry at Dodoma) fSivani, JK.^ dated the 18th day of July, 2025 in Misc. Civil Application No. 000010359 of 2025 JUDGMENT OF THE COURT 5th May & 3rd June 2026 MDEMU. J.A,: In the High Court of Tanzania, Main Registry, Siyani, JK, dismissed the appellant's application for extension of time within which to apply for orders of certiorari, to quash the first respondent's decision that the appellant's appeal to the Public Service Commission (PSC) was time barred and mandamus, to compel the respondents to determine his appeal on merits. The history of this matter shows that, in the year 2004, the second respondent employed the appellant in the post of assistant lecturer till 23r d June, 2017 when he was terminated on disciplinary grounds. His battle to l the Commission for Mediation and Arbitration (the CMA) and further to the High Court on revision, stood fruitless on account that, since the second respondent is a public institution, the labour dispute ought to have been referred to the PSC instead of the CMA as it was. Given the circumstances, the appellant was late to appeal to the PSC to challenge the decision of the second respondent. He thus sought an extension of time from the PSC which, in the end, it refused the invitation. He then appealed to the first respondent who again did not determine the appeal on merits because he was out of the forty five (45) days permitted to challenge the decision of the PSC. This decision again aggrieved him and he successful applied for leave to file prerogative orders of certiorari and mandamus . This was in June, 2024. He further filed the application for judicial review in time, but unfortunately, it was struck out on 3r d October, 2024 for being filed in a wrong registry. He then rushed to the High Court, Main Registry only to receive another order striking out of the matter on 22n d April, 2025 for not being supported by a statement. All these meant that the appellant cannot precisely exercise his rights to apply for judicial review unless, time to do so is extended. Indeed, he applied, however, as we intimated above, the High Court dismissed his application for failure to establish sufficient cause. The appeal before us was henceforth filed by advancing five grounds of appeal. Nonetheless, before 2 hearing of the appeal commenced on 5th May, 2026, Ms. Stella Simkoko, learned counsel for the appellant, abandoned all the grounds of appeal save for the 5th ground which goes that: " That the honourable Judge erred in facts and in law in deciding that, I have not accounted for the delay. " Submitting in support of the foregoing ground of appeal, Ms. Simkoko stated that, the appellant pleaded in paragraphs 16 and 17 of the affidavit in support of the application for extension of time to the High Court that, his counsel was sick and was excused from duty (ED) as from 24th to 28th April, 2025 and that she was still ill till 1s t May, 2025, which was a public holiday. She explained further that, the learned JK acknowledged the sickness of the counsel for the appellant, yet he proceeded to hold that, there was no evidence to prove the continued sickness of the counsel after the expiry of the issued ED on 28th April, 2025. Regarding accounting for 3r d and 4th May, 2025, the learned counsel submitted that, such facts are pleaded in paragraph 18 of the affidavit and that, she did not file the application because it was weekends, so she had to wait till the Monday of 5th May, 2025 when she filed it, though the control number was issued on 6th May, 2025. The learned counsel thus cited to us the case of Chris George Kasalile v. Tanzania Institute of Education 3 & Another (Civil Application No. 775/01 of 2022) [2024] T7CA 199 (TANZLII) and that of NMB Bank Pic v. Fabiola Deogratius Maami t/a Fabiola Curio Shop (Civil Application No. 152/02 of 2024) [2024] TZCA 854 (TANZLII) trying to justify when the document is deemed to have been filed electronically between the filing and generation of the control number dates for filing fee payment purposes. She finally concluded that, the appellant managed to account for all the days of the delay, as such, the learned High Court Judge should not have dismissed the application for extension of time. On this, she urged us to consider our decisions in YARA Tanzania Limited v. DB Shapriya & Company Limited (Civil Application No. 498/16 of 2016) [2017] TZCA 296 (TANZLII) and Mary Donat Mashiku v. Martha Donat Mashiku (Administratrix of the Estate of the late Donat Samike Mashiku) (Civil Appeal No. 7 of 2024) [2026] TZCA 365 (TANZLII) and allow the appeal. In reply, the respondents were represented by a team of learned State Attorneys comprising Messrs Rashid Mohamed Said and Ayoub Gervas Sanga, learned Senior State Attorneys and Erasto Baluwa, learned State Attorney who resisted the appeal. It was Mr. Sanga who submitted on their behalf. The main thrust of objecting the appeal was on failure to account for the days of delay from 29th to 30th April, 2025. To the learned counsel, the evidence is clear that the appellant's ED ended on 28th April, 2025. He therefore concluded in this regard that, as the dates were not pleaded, not supported by any evidence and they are just bare statements, the High Court was justified to dismiss the application for failure to account for those days. He urged us to consider our decision in Octavian Rugerezi Francis v. Teachers Service Commission (Civil Application No. 220 of 2021) [2024] TZCA 91 (TANZLII) arguing that, the appellant has failed to establish, by way of evidence, what he was really doing after the expiry of ED as to prevent him from filing the application in time. Submitting on failure to account for the 2n d , 3rd and 4th May, 2025, Mr. Sanga argued that, since at that time documents were to be filed electronically, there was no justification on the appellant's side for not filing such documents during the weekends. He maintained that, the appellant would have filed it electronically and wait for generation of the control number on Monday. He summed up by urging us to dismiss the appeal since there is nothing which would justify us to interfere with the exercise of discretion which refused the extension of time. Ms. Simkoko came in with a rejoinder by reiterating what she submitted in chief and remarked briefly that, what is relevant under rule 21 of the Electronic Filing Rules before the amendment was that, the date of payment of filing fees was considered to be the filing date. 5 In resolving the instant appeal, the crux of the matter lies on principles relating to advancing sufficient cause that would entitle the court to exercise its discretionary power of extension of time. Therefore, principles relating to electronic filing will not be the centre of our discussion. We are saying so because, the decision of the learned JK was based on failure to plead some factual matters to prove the presence of sufficient cause as we will demonstrate in due course. For ease of reference, let part of the ruling in this regard speak for itself as hereunder: "Reviewing the records, I have not been able to see any other sufficient reason such as point o f iaw or illegality with the impugned decision which would warrant a grant o f extension in light o f the failure to account for each day o f the delay." Now, the crux of the matter lies on the question whether the appellant accounted for each day of the delay. To simplify the discussion, the learned JK was very specific on what days were not accounted for. He stated in this regard as follows: "7 /7 sum up, I am satisfied with the account given by the applicant for seven out o f the thirteen days to be accounted for, that is 24hApril to 2&hApril2025, 1st May and 5th May, 2025. However, I am not satisfied with the account given for six days out of 6 thirteen ; that is 2 J d , 2$h and 30th April, 2025 and 2n d , J d and 4 h May 2025." This is what he found. In disbelieving the account for 29th and 30th April, 2025, the learned JK based his finding on the account that, the nature and evidence of illness on such days were not pleaded and remain unsupported by evidence as follows: "It has been pleaded that between 29h and 3Cfh April, 2025\ the applicant was still unable to resume her duties and counsel for the applicant invited me to consider that the pain she was feeling in her legs between those days was o f such a nature as to restrict her from going to the office. The respondent has also challenged this argument The nature of pain she was feeling has not been pleaded or supported by evidence." [emphasis supplied] A similar reasoning was made concerning the account for 3rd and 4th May, 2025 which the appellant submitted that, the High Court found such days were not pleaded as well. Since pleading of such facts became the centre of the decision in refusing to extend time, we ventured on the affidavit of the applicant and found the following paragraphs to be of assistance: 7 "17. That on 29/4/2025 my advocate informed me further that she couid not go to her office to work as she stiff had some pain > untii 1/5/2025 when she informed me that she was abie to go to the offtce where she prepared this application and sent it to me for attestation as I reside in Dodoma and she resides in Dar es Salaam." [emphasis supplied] It is evident and obvious from our close reading of the above excerpt that, the appellant pleaded in his affidavit that on 29th and 30th April, 2025 his advocate was still ill from the pains she was feeling and therefore she was unable to attend her workplace. This evidence on the continued sickness of the appellant's counsel is supported by the affidavit of the Ms. Simkoko Stella, learned counsel as deposed in paragraphs 6 and 7 that: "5. That on 23/4/20251 commenced preparation o f the said application ; and on 24/4/2025 while I was at the Msasani Peninsula Hospital in Dar es salaam I fell down the stairs and injured my legs which have a chronic swelling problem and after treatment, I was advised to rest from duty for five days, from 24/4/2025 to 28/4/2025 where I informed my client of my sickness and showed him the respective Excuse From Duty (E D ) Form from the Msasani Peninsula Hospital. 8 7. That on 29/4/20241 was still unable to go to the office due to the pain until on 1/5/2025 when I woke up with bearable pain, I informed my Applicant, prepared the application , sent it to the applicant for attestation , and I also prepared my affidavit to prove my sickness. Unfortunately after preparing the application ; I could not see the registration receipt o f 24/4/2025 issued by the Msasani Peninsula Hospital hence on 1/5/2025 I reported the loss to the hospital and on 2/5/2025 to the Police system where a loss Report was issued. A copy o f the Excuse from Duty (E. D) Form, my Citizen Identity Card to prove I am also known as Stella Faraja Simkoko , a copy o f the Loss report and the registration receipt for 1/5/2025 are collectively annexed as SRB10 to form part o f this affidavit." On that account, we are of the view that, the learned JK was therefore unjustified and slipped into an error to hold that, the appellant did not plead the nature of pains experience by the counsel in those days in his affidavit. More so, as he had already concluded that the said illness incapacitated the counsel to attend her duties. Regarding the complained weekends, paragraph 18 of the appellant's affidavit deposes that: "18. That on 1/5/2025, I could not get a commissioner for oath as it was a public holiday until 9 2/5/2025 when I got one, and returned the application to my advocate for uploading in the system. However, I was not allowed to pay as the said application was returned to my advocate for rectification o f an error in filing. Therefore, the period o f delay from 7/6/2024 when leave was granted to 5/5/2025 when the same will be paid for, will be three hundred thirty-two days in which the period o f delay from the date in which miscellaneous Civil Application No. 26065 (the last application) was struck out to-date, will be thirteen (13) days. " The point we take home from the above excerpt is one, that, the appellant pleaded that on 2n d May, 2025 he was attesting documents and further that the weekends experienced some on-line technical filing. Therefore, unlike the findings of the learned JK, the said facts were pleaded in the affidavit of the appellant which supported the application for extension of time placed before him. In the circumstances, we also find that, the learned JK slipped into an error in denying to extend time on account that, the depositions in the affidavit were devoid of facts to account for the delay on weekends. In the final analysis, we hold that, had the learned JK considered paragraphs 17 and 18 of the appellant's affidavit and paragraphs 6 and 7 of the affidavit of Ms. Simkoko, he would have concluded that, the appellant 10 accounted for the days ranging from 23rd , 29th and 30th April, 2025 and further the 2n d , 3rd and 4th May, 2025. As such, he would have not concluded that, the appellant had failed to account for the days of the delay. With that note, we hold that, the appellant managed to establish sufficient cause to be entitled for extension of time. The appeal is accordingly allowed. In that regard, time to file an application for judicial review is extended for fourteen (14) days from the date of this judgment. This being a labour matter, we are not prompted to grant costs. DATED at DODOMA this 1s t day of June, 2026. F. L. K. WAMBALI JUSTICE OF APPEAL I. J. MAIGE JUSTICE OF APPEAL G. J. MDEMU JUSTICE OF APPEAL Judgment delivered this 3rd day of June, 2026 via virtual Court, in the presence of Ms. Stella Simkoko, learned counsel for the Appellant, Mr. Ayoub Gervas Sanga, learned Senior State Attorney for the Respondents and Ms. Hilda M < Clerk; is hereby certified as a true copy of the original.