By TIOL News Service

MUMBAI, APR 26, 2014: YOU have to hand it over to the Revenue for coming out with innovative excuses to justify the delay in filing an appeal on time.

The commonest reason given is that the file was lost and had to be reconstructed. If this does not work, the next would be that the concerned officer had misplaced the file. Another reason would be that the office premises was shifted due to re-organization of the Commissionerate and probably the files of various sections were mixed up and only after searching high and low was it found and, therefore, the delay. Or that the matter involved was an old one and it took time to trace out the linked-file.

In the present case, there was a delay in filing the appeal against the order of the Commissioner(Appeals). How much was the delay is not forthcoming in the CESTAT order for the simple reason that it is not forthcoming even in the application filed by the Revenue seeking condonation of delay.

Nonetheless the 'sole' reason given for the "delay" was that the yearly "ritual" of Annual General Transfers was being conducted in the Commissionerate/Zone and, therefore, the papers sent to the lower formations for obtaining comments were delayed. Obviously, the officers were packing up, some enthusiastically and others ruing their transfer!

The Bench observed that no details were given when the papers were sent and when the AGT took place.

Holding that the application did not meet the basic requirements of a COD application, the same was dismissed as non-maintainable.

One thing is sure…the story will not end here!

(See 2014-TIOL-644-CESTAT-MUM)