TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2012 (6) TMI 675
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....re Appellate Tribunal for Foreign Exchange against a common adjudication order dated 4.3.2005 passed by the Special Director, Enforcement Directorate, Govt. of India, New Delhi imposing a penalty of Rs. 1,00,00,000/- against Renu Vij for contravention of Section 9(1) (d) read with Section 68 of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 and Rs. 40 lacs against Sh. Ravinder Singh for contravention of provisions of Section 9(1)(b) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973. The reason for imposition of these penalties in the departmental adjudication proceedings were essentially twofold i.e. (i) Smt. Renu Vij made a payment of US$3,20,000/- to Sh. Ravinder Singh and he received such payment otherwise than an authorized dealer by order or on behalf of M/s Less and Less Trading Company, Dubai and (ii) Renu Vij made a payment of Rs. 2,67,98,100/- to one Vinod Grover by order and on behalf of Rajesh Mahajan of Dubai. 5. The Tribunal vide order dated 8.11.2005 granted dispensation of the pre-deposit of penalty to both the respondents on the ground of prima facie a good case is being shown by both of them and thereafter, two appeals were taken up for final disposal by the Division Bench of t....
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....the appeal) and in Crl.A.No.1232/2011 an application bearing Crl.M.A.no.11756/11 (seeking condonation of 507 days delay in filing the appeal from the date of final order i.e. 6.8.2009). It may be pertinent here to mention the averments made in the said applications, which read as under:- "(i) That vide order dated 26.6.2006, 28.7.2009 and 6.8.2009 passed by learned Appellate Tribunal for Foreign Exchange (Ld. Tribunal) in Appeal no.382/2005 titled as Smt. Renu Vij v. Special Director, Enforcement Directorate and also Appeal No.388/2005 titled Shri Ravinder Singh v. Special Director, Enforcement Directorate, the Hon'ble Tribunal set aside the adjudication order passed by the Appellant, a certified copy of the same was received by the department on 23.9.2009. The appellant department decided to challenge the order of the Hon'ble Tribunal and they send the comments /instructions to the counsel for the appellant, the detailed Appeal was prepared and was further required to be transmitted to the Department for the approval of the competent authority. It was approved that the same was signed, attested and filed before this Hon'ble Court. That delay was neither intentional nor deliberate....
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....r in case appeals are not heard on merits. 14. I have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellants and gone through the applications. 15. An appeal according to Section 35 of FEMA has to be filed against the order of the Appellate Tribunal within a period of 60 days from the date of pronouncement of the order. The relevant Provisions of Section 35 of FEMA and Section 54 of FERA under which these appeals have been filed, read as under:- "35. Appeal to High Court.-Any person aggrieved by any decision or order of the Appellate Tribunal may file an appeal to the High Court within sixty days from the date of communication of the decision or order of the Appellate Tribunal to him on any question of law arising out of such order: Provided that the High Court may, if it is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from filing the appeal within the said period, allow it to be filed within a further period not exceeding sixty days. 54. Appeal to High Court.-An appeal shall lie to the High Court only on questions of law from any decision or order of the Appellate Board under sub-section (3) or sub-section (4) of Section 52: Provided that....
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....s with regard to the condonation of delay. It has been observed in State of Nagaland v. Lipok AO AIR 2005 SC 2191 as under:- "The expression 'sufficient cause' must receive a liberal construction so as to advance substantial justice and generally delays in preferring the appeals are required to be condoned in the interest of justice where no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or lack of bona fides is imputable to the party seeking condonation of delay. In litigations to which Government is a party, there is yet another aspect which, perhaps, cannot be ignored. If appeals brought by the Government are lost for such defaults, no person is individually affects, but what, in the ultimate analysis, suffers is public interest. The decisions of Government are collective and institutional decisions and do not share the characteristic of decisions of private individuals. The law of limitation is, no doubt, the same for a private citizen as for Governmental authorities, Government, like any other litigant must take responsibility for the acts and omissions of its officers. But a somewhat different complexion is imparted to the matter where Government makes out a case where public inter....
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....espondents and then filed the appeals belatedly to get only a seal of legitimization. 22. No date, on which the judgment of the Appellate Tribunal was received by them or the dates on which the different officers dealt with the file has been given. The averments which have been made in such a casual manner seeking condonation of delay has been reproduced hereinabove, and it has been stated that decision making process has resulted in 507 days delay. 23. If these are the averments made in the applications in such important matters where the citizen is sought to be fastened with a liability running into lacs of rupees, it can be said that this is being done in a most casual manner and as a matter, there is a gross negligence on the part of the department. Even after the objections were raised by the Registry with regard to the filing of the appeals, the officers of the department had not woken up in order to remove those objections. No dates have been given as to when the file was collected from the registry when the counsel was designated as a senior, what date the matter was referred to the department by the Directorate of Enforcement for the purpose of appointment of an alternat....