Reasonable time for penalty power: unexplained delay in export-obligation proceedings vitiated the penalty orders.

Where no limitation period is prescribed for a statutory penalty, the power to initiate and complete proceedings must still be exercised within a reasonable time. The article notes that an unexplained and inordinate delay in issuing the notice and passing the penalty order for failure to fulfil export obligation rendered the proceedings unsustainable. Prior debarment was not treated as a bar to separate penalty action, but the long delay itself vitiated the impugned orders, and the writ petition succeeded with the appellate and adjudication orders set aside.

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Issues: Whether penalty proceedings for failure to fulfil export obligation, initiated after a long lapse of time and culminating in the impugned orders, were vitiated for want of exercise of power within a reasonable time.

Analysis: The notice for penalty was issued many years after the alleged default, and the penalty order followed after further delay. Where a statute does not prescribe a period of limitation, the power to initiate and impose penalty must still be exercised within a reasonable time. The delay was held to be unexplained and unjustified, and the prior debarment was not treated as a bar to the separate penalty proceedings.

Conclusion: The penalty proceedings were not sustainable as they were initiated and concluded after an unreasonable and inordinate delay, and the impugned orders were liable to be quashed.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded and the impugned appellate and adjudication orders were set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where no period of limitation is prescribed for exercising statutory penal power, the authority must act within a reasonable time, and an unexplained long delay can vitiate the proceedings.

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