1994 (4) TMI 353

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....sed on March 12, 1993, were seized/frozen, in pursuance whereof the appellant was enjoined upon to desist from transferring or otherwise dealing with the scheduled properties, except with the prior permission of the concerned officer or the Competent Authority. Section 68-O(1) of the Act provides for an appeal against this order also and the normal period of limitation prescribed is 45 days. The impugned order was served on the appellant on March 19, 1993, and the appeal, taking the normal period of 45 days, ought to have been filed on or before May 3, 1993 ; but in fact the appeal was filed on May 14, 1993, entailing a delay of 11 days in filing the appeal. The appellant has approached this Tribunal with an application for condonation of....

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.... provision for filing appeals provided under section 68-O(1) of the Act, even against an order under section 68F, in case the appellant felt aggrieved by the said order. Expressing their gratitude to the Competent Authority for this information, the appellant filed this appeal in order to safeguard their rights, and prayed for condonation of delay in filing the appeal. The application also contains contentions on points of law, citing certain judgments. We will revert to them shortly. It may be noted that the appellant in this case is Shri Niranjan Jayantilal Shah. But the appeal has been filed through his attorney, Smt. Alka M. Shah, his married sister, and it is her affidavit which has been appended with the petition for condonation of d....

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....he absence of any such details, we do not find it possible to accept the plea vaguely made in the application that because of the fact that the concerned advocate had not taken steps to file the appeal, the delay should be condoned. The least that was expected was to give the necessary details with a positive averment that this order was handed over to a named advocate and that advocate advised that no appeal was to be filed or an affidavit of the said advocate as to under what bona fide or genuine mistake he laboured and did not file any appeal, till the Competent Authority advised them that an appeal could be filed. In the face of this, we do not think that the authority cited by Shri Harish, learned counsel for the appellant, to the eff....

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....ld abundantly make it clear that this is meant to be a safeguard to preserve and protect the property in case eventually an order of forfeiture is to be passed in the intervening period, so that the party is not able to dissipate and dispose of the same. Even then, a right has been reserved to the party to approach the Investigating Officer, who passed the initial order, or the Competent Authority, who confirmed the order for permission to dispose of the property or deal with it in a particular manner ; and in case prior permission is accorded, then even this bar of dealing with one's property also gets lifted. The present is not a case where a final order of forfeiture has been passed, which it goes without saying, very seriously affects a....