Sikkim High Court: A Division Bench of Vijai Kumar Bist, CJ and Meenakshi Madan Rai, J. dismissed a writ petition filed against the order of the Commissioner of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax (Appeal I) whereby he had rejected the application for condonation of delay filed by the petitioner along with an appeal from the order of the Joint Commissioner imposing service tax, interest and penalty under provisions of the Finance Act, 1994, on the petitioner.
In the said application for condonation of delay, no efforts were made by the petitioner to explain the delay from 15-08-2015 till 7-10-2016 (the date of filing the appeal before the Commissioner). While rejecting the application, the Commissioner recorded that the reasons for delay assigned by the petitioner were flimsy, and the period delay was also calculated irresponsibly and inaccurably.
Sourav Sen and Rupa Dhakal, Advocates for the petitioner Cooperative Society submitted that the case be considered on merits to subserve the ends of justice. Per contra, B.K. Gupta, Advocate appearing for the Commissioner, supported the impugned order.
The High Court noted that the application for condonation of delay reflected a lackadaisical approach on the part of the petitioner. It was observed: “We are conscious and aware that the law of limitation is sufficiently elastic to allow and enable the concerned Authorities to apply it for substantial justice, but at the same time it may be mentioned that merely because a non-pedantic approach should be adopted to an application for condonation of delay it is not essential that every delay including those in which the drafting has been done in a haphazard manner and with nary a care to detail or explanation pertaining to the delay with dates thereof be condoned.”
Reference was made to Supreme Court decision in Esha Bhattacharjee v. Raghunathpur Nafar Academy,(2013) 12 SCC 649, wherein it was, inter alia, held that an application for condonation of delay should be drafted with careful concern and not in a haphazard manner harbouring the notion that the courts are required to condone delay on the bedrock of the principle that adjudication of a lis on merits is seminal to justice dispensation system.
In such view of the matter, the Court was of the opinion that the impugned order suffered no infirmity. Resultantly it was held that the merits of the matter could not be looked into. The petition was thus dismissed.[Singbel GPU Construction Co-Operative Society Ltd. v. CCE, 2019 SCC OnLine Sikk 105, decided on 18-07-2019]
