2016 (4) TMI 791
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....istered under the Companies Act and is engaged in manufacturing excisable goods and enjoys necessary registration for such purpose. The Additional Commissioner, Central Excise, after issuance of show cause notice and hearing the petitioner, passed an order in original dated 24.12.2014 and disallowed the Cenvat credit to the tune of Rs. 19,92,473/and imposed penalty of Rs. 50,000/under Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004. Against such order in original, the petitioner preferred appeal before the Appellate Commissioner. There was however, delay in filing such appeal. The petitioner therefore, in its communication dated 04.05.2015 sought to explain the delay in following manner. "The appellant submit that they were prevented by sufficient cause....
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.... to grant us an opportunity of personal hearing to further explain the 'cause' or exceptional circumstances, which has lead to the above delay." 4. The Commissioner of Appeals, however, by his order dated 05.06.2015 rejected the appeal on the ground that the same was preferred beyond the period of limitation prescribed and was also filed long after the maximum period for which the Commissioner could condone the delay. Under the circumstances, the Commissioner was of the opinion that he had no power to condone such delay. Only on this ground, the appeal came to be dismissed. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the adjudicating authority had committed a serious error in confirming the duty demand and imposing pe....
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....ases. 7. It is undoubtedly true that the appeal against the order in original should be filed within a period of 60 days as provided under Section 35 of the Central Excise Act. The Commissioner Appeals has discretion to condone the delay if sufficient grounds are shown, however, not beyond a period of 30 days thereafter. In that view of the matter, the appellate Commissioner was perfectly justified in not condoning the delay. In the present case, delay was of a total of 65 days and thus, the appeal was belated by 35 days beyond the maximum condonable period by the Commissioner. 8. As is well settled, through several judgments of the Division Benches and as confirmed by the Full Bench in reference in case of Panoli Intermediate (India)....
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....proviso nor the appeal can be filed beyond the period of 90 days. (2) The second question is answered in negative to the extent that the petition under Article 226 of the Constitution would not lie for the purpose of condonation of delay in filing the appeal. (3) On the third question, the answer is in affirmative, but with the clarification that A)The petition under Article 226 of the Constitution can be preferred for challenging the order passed by the original adjudicating authority in following circumstances that A.1) The authority has passed the order without jurisdiction and by assuming jurisdiction which there exist none, or A.2) Has exercised the power in excess of the jurisdiction and by....
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....ve condoned the delay. Nevertheless, as held by the Division Bench of this Court in case of D.R. Industries and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors. reported in 2008(3) GLH 662, such a situation would not prevent the High Court in appropriate case examine the validity of the orderinoriginal itself. This is however, hedged by two requirements. On that delay is otherwise well explained and the Court finds that non consideration of the issues would result into gross injustice. The Court observed as under: "19. As regards the contention that there may be extraordinary cases where assessees may not be in a position to challenge the order of the adjudicating authority before the Commissioner (Appeals) within a period of 90 days from the date ....


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