Inordinate adjudication delay under Customs law can invalidate a show cause notice and any consequential order.

Under Section 28 of the Customs Act, adjudication must be completed within the statutory timeframe, and the phrase allowing determination only where possible does not permit indefinite pendency. Repeated call-book placement, unexplained gaps, and mere administrative inaction do not show genuine inability or circumstances beyond the Department's control. Applying that principle, the Court found the show cause notice had remained pending for about fifteen years without adequate justification. It further held that the later order-in-original, passed while the writ petition against the notice was pending, could not cure the underlying illegality or validate stale proceedings. The notice was therefore liable to be quashed, and the consequential order-in-original was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the show cause notice and the consequential order-in-original were liable to be quashed on account of inordinate delay in adjudication, including repeated placement of the matter in the call book and initiation of parallel proceedings while the writ petition challenging the notice was pending.

Analysis: The applicable scheme under Section 28 of the Customs Act, 1962 required adjudication within the statutory timeframe, and the phrase limiting determination to cases where it was possible to do so could not be treated as a licence for indefinite pendency. The Court relied on prior decisions holding that the Department must show genuine inability or circumstances beyond its control; mere administrative inaction, repeated call-book placement, and unexplained gaps in adjudication do not satisfy that standard. On the facts, the notice remained pending for about fifteen years, with no adequate justification for the delay. The Court also noted that the order-in-original had been passed during the pendency of the writ petition challenging the notice, which could not validate the stale proceedings or cure the underlying illegality.

Conclusion: The show cause notice was liable to be quashed for inordinate and unjustified delay in adjudication, and the order-in-original based on that notice was also unsustainable.

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