By TIOL News Service

AHMEDABAD, JAN 25, 2017 : A Special Civil Application has been filed by the Petitioner before the Gujarat High Court pointing out that the Tribunal has dismissed the appeal as not maintainable in view of the fact that the documents annexed with the memorandum of appeal are not legible.

Attention is invited to the provisions rules 9 and 16 of the CESTAT Procedure Rules, 1982 to submit that the appeal memorandum should be accompanied by four copies of the o-in-a/o-in-o and a paper book containing copies of the documents, statements of witnesses and other papers on the file of, or referred to in the orders of, the departmental authorities, which the appellant proposes to rely upon at the time of hearing of the appeal.

It was pointed out that in the facts of the present case, at the relevant point of time, the petitioner had submitted all the relevant documents on which it proposes to rely upon, however, due to lapse of time the documents have faded. Inasmuch as the fading of documents on account of lapse of time would not tantamount to the petitioner not having produced the documents on which it places reliance.

And, therefore, the appeal could not have been dismissed by the Tribunal on the ground of non-maintainability.

The petitioner also drew the attention of the court to several similar orders passed by the Tribunal to submit that in numerous cases the Tribunal had perfunctorily dismissed the appeals as not maintainable merely on the ground that certain documents or statements had not been filed with the appeal memorandum, without even giving any opportunity to the appellant to produce the same on record, despite the fact that the appeal had been pending since several years.

It is, therefore, urged that the Tribunal be restrained from passing similar orders dismissing the appeals on account of non-maintainability merely because certain documents are not placed or the documents have become illegible due to lapse of time.

The High Court observed -

"…, the court is of the view that the matter requires consideration. Hence, issue RULE returnable on 01.02.2017. In the meanwhile, it is hoped that the Tribunal shall keep in mind the fact that the Courts and the Tribunals are respected for the matters which they adjudicate and not the matters which they dispose of. While, the Tribunal is required to endeavour to decide as many cases as possible, disposal of appeals in such a cavalier fashion would only give rise to more litigation and would not bring an end to the same…."

(See 2017-TIOL-172-HC-AHM-CX)