Limitation exclusion period must be applied before rejecting a refund claim as time-barred; fresh merits decision required.

A refund application could not be rejected as time-barred without excluding the period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022, because binding judicial directions required that interval to be left out for limitation purposes in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings. Since the claim had been rejected solely on delay, the rejection order was unsustainable. The order was quashed and the refund application was remitted for fresh consideration on merits through a reasoned and speaking order in accordance with law.

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Issues: Whether the refund application could be rejected as time-barred despite the exclusion of the period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022 for limitation purposes, and whether the rejection order deserved to be quashed with a fresh decision on the refund claim.

Analysis: The refund claim was rejected only on the ground of delay. The Court noted that the Supreme Court had directed exclusion of the period from 15.03.2020 till 28.02.2022 for limitation in all judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings. In view of that binding exclusion, the rejection of the refund application merely on limitation, without accounting for the excluded period, was unsustainable. The impugned order was therefore liable to be set aside and the refund application had to be reconsidered afresh on merits by a reasoned and speaking order.

Conclusion: The rejection on limitation was unsustainable, the impugned order was quashed, and the refund application was remitted for fresh consideration in accordance with law.

Final Conclusion: The petitioner succeeded to the extent of getting the rejection order set aside and the matter sent back for a fresh decision on the refund claim.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the period of limitation has been excluded by binding judicial directions, an application cannot be rejected as time-barred without giving effect to that exclusion.

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