2001 (2) TMI 1003

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....re is no dispute that the order sought to be challenged in the said application was made on October 15, 1996 while the application under section 8 of the said Act was filed before this Tribunal on November 29, 2000, i.e., after a gap of four years. Therefore, the petitioner is required to explain the delay of these four years. Now Mr. Chatterjee, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner, submits that his agent advised him not to move against the order impugned, i.e., the order dated October 15, 1996, rather the said agent advised his client to appear before the concerned Commercial Tax Officer in regular assessment proceedings and produce books of accounts. The case commenced when the assessment was reopened and said order of reopening....

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....ore, the petitioner cannot take recourse of the decisions referred to above as in that case a lawyer was involved, but in the present case a Chartered Accountant is involved. It is not the case of the petitioner that this Chartered Accountant was appointed by executing a regular Vakalatnama by which a lawyer is appointed. Therefore, the Chartered Accountant cannot represent a client as a lawyer is entitled to and a Chartered Accountant cannot claim the benefit which is given to a lawyer as per the Advocates Act. 3.. Thus we find that the advice claimed to have been given by the Chartered Accountant was given after the time-limit and Mr. Halder who claims himself to be a Chartered Accountant was never an advocate and so the decisions refe....

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....article 226 of the Constitution. A five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court observed in a case reported in AIR 1961 SC 1506 (A.V. Venkateswaran, Collector of Customs, Bombay v. Ramchand Sobhraj Wadhwani) that if a petitioner has disabled himself from availing himself of the statutory remedy by his own fault in not doing so within the prescribed time, he cannot certainly be permitted to urge that as a ground for the court dealing with his petition under article 226 to exercise its discretion in his favour. 4.. Here the position is identical because it was the petitioner himself who allowed his remedy to become barred by limitation and he sat idly over the matter for years together. In a case which came up before this Tribunal, this Tribunal ....