TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1998 (12) TMI 583
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....ents made for these years, the appellant preferred appeals before the Appellate Deputy Commissioner, Punjagutta, Hyderabad seeking relief on the sales turnover of wires drawn out of tax suffered wire rods. The relief was granted based on the decision of the Supreme Court in Telangana Steel Industries v. State of Andhra Pradesh [1994] 93 STC 187. 2.. The appeals were filed with enormous delay. The appeals for the years 1983-84 and 1984-85 were preferred on April 28, 1990, whereas the appeals for the other four years were filed on April 2, 1994 and April 6, 1994. The delay is about three years for the assessment years 1983-84, 1984-85, 1988-89 and 1989-90. The appellate authority condoned the delay by a cryptic order after hearing the argu....
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....ent on the appellate authority to pass a reasoned order after applying its mind to the question whether the reasons given by the assessee constituted sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal within time and the appellate authority failed to discharge this duty. We have further held that the consequential order passed on merits also becomes illegal. We have further held that the Commissioner's revisional order cannot also be sustained for the reasons given therein. Hence, we set aside both the orders, i.e., the revisional order of the Commissioner as well as order of the Appellate Deputy Commissioner and directed the appellate authority to consider the question of condonation of delay afresh and deal with the appeals accordingly. These....
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....r, no explanation is forthcoming from the appellant as to why he filed two appeals on April 28, 1990 (without any petition for condonation of delay), remained silent thereafter till the Supreme Court gave its verdict. In vaguest possible terms, it was stated in the affidavit that the matter was pending before the courts in India and before the Supreme Court. The reasonable inference to be drawn is that the appellant was content with the benefit of set-off of tax granted by the State Government soon after the adverse decision of the High Court and proceeded on the basis that no exception ought to be taken to the levy of tax on wires and accordingly conducted himself by collecting the tax and paying it to the State. Moreover, when he could fi....
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....manufacturers/assessees all over the country are filing refund claims.........." 6.. The decision of this Court in State of Andhra Pradesh v. Venkataramana Chuduva & Muramura Merchant [1984] 57 STC 179 has been strongly relied upon before the Commissioner as well as before us. Our attention has been drawn to the following passage at page 185: "The other remedy open to the assessees is to prefer an appeal or revision, as the case may be, along with a petition for condoning the delay, on the ground that in view of the position of law obtaining on the date of receipt of the impugned order, they decided not to file an appeal; but, since the subsequent decision establishes the said assumption to be incorrect, and further that the tax has b....
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....ommissioner that such a plea was raised for the first time. Apart from the fact that there was no definite averment before the appellate authority as regards the mistake of law, as observed supra, there could be no scope for any such mistaken impression. Similarly situated assessees including the appellant's brother doing business in the same area (as seen from the record), were agitating the matters before the High Court and the Supreme Court. The appellant, for reasons best known to him, did not take any steps to contest the legality of the levy on wires drawn out of tax-suffered wire rods. It is not even the appellant's case that he did not file appeals earlier as he thought it was a futile remedy and that the appeals were filed soon aft....