TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (11) TMI 373
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....plicants / Original Appellants seek extension of the period of interim relief granted by this Appellate Tribunal vide order dated 15.02.2018. By the said order Applicants / Appellants were allowed to continue with the auditing assignments of their existing clients till 31.03.2019 or till a newly constituted Bench takes an appropriate final decision in the matter, whichever is earlier, which is now sought to be extended till 31.03.2020 by this Miscellaneous Application.. 2. Learned Senior Counsel for the Applicants / Appellants Shri Janak Dwarkadas argued in detail that the prayer to extend the period of interim relief till 31.03.2020 is because seven clients of the Applicants / Appellants follow calendar year as their accounting year and the remaining clients have financial year as their account year. The former set of clients need to take decision regarding appointment of their auditor any time now and the later set of clients also need to take a similar decision in the next few months. Further, decision regarding the appointment / change of auditor is a time consuming one with onerous procedural requirements. It is also submitted by the Applicants / Appellants that a few clien....
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....CC 144 and (e) Champalal Binani vs. The Commissioner of Income Tax, West Bengal and Ors. decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India on 04.12.1969 he submitted that PWC network is a unique brand; Applicants / Appellants cannot seek relief on the same ground as they cannot "approbate and reprobate" and the appellants waived their right to further interim relief when they failed to take advantage of presenting the appeal before an available appropriate Bench. 6. Since the chronology of events is crucial in deciding this Miscellaneous Application the same is given below:- (a) 10.01.2018 - SEBI issued the order impugned in Appeal No. 6 of 2018 (as well as in Appeal No. 7 of 2018). The said order, inter alia, directed that entities / firms practicing as Chartered Accountants in India under the brand and banner of PW, shall not directly or indirectly issue any certificate of audit of listed companies, compliance of obligations of listed companies and intermediaries registered with SEBI and the requirements under the SEBI Act, 1992, the SCRA 1956, the Depositories Act, 1996, those provisions of the Companies Act 2013 which are administered by SEBI under section 24 thereof, t....
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....sidered by a Division Bench today or at least tomorrow, a Single Member may not be in a position to decide the whole matter because of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 2000 read with the relevant provisions of SEBI Act, 1992. In this fact situation, ends of justice would be met with if the cut-off date prescribed in the impugned order, i.e., 31.12.2018 is extended till 31.03.2019 or till the newly constituted Division Bench takes an appropriate final decision in the matter, whichever is earlier. Till then, the appellants shall be allowed to carry on the audit / certification work of their existing clients. We modify our order dated 19th January, 2018 because of the peculiarity of situation which has arisen on account of one of us is demitting the office on 19th February, 2018 and only a Division Bench will be in a position to hear the matter. (emphasis added) 12. Shri Ravi Kadam and Shri Kevic Setalvad, learned Senior Counsel at the end of the matter have prayed for stay of this additional interim relief. We do not find any good reason to stay the present order. Ordered accordingly. 13. By consent, stand over to 23rd March, 2018. Registry is di....
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...." was available from 23.03.2018 or at least from 06.04.2018 onwards when the parties had given their written consent, till 11.07.2018 the date on which the then Presiding Officer demitted office. Thus a window for hearing and disposing of the matter was available for more than three months. The counsel for the parties, particularly, the counsel for the Applicants / Appellants for whom early hearing the appeal was very crucial as they had approached this Appellate Tribunal within a week of the impugned order and interim reliefs were also given in a very short time frame, neither availed this window of three months plus nor even intimated a date to the Registry as stated in the Court on 06.04.2018. 10. Responding to the administrative order dated 18.06.2018 the Applicants / Appellants in an affidavit submitted that the counsel for the parties could not fix an immediate future date of hearing because of the vacation of the Hon'ble Bombay High Court during 07.05.2018 to 02.06.2018 and the vacation of the Hon'ble Supreme Court between 20.05.2018 to 01.07.2018. Therefore, on 19.06.2018 when the matter was taken up 06.08.2018 was sought as the convenient date under the expectation that....