2022 (11) TMI 709

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....cating the show cause notice. It is Petitioner's case that after the reply was filed to the show cause notice between 2018 and 2019, Petitioner wrote numerable letters to Respondent No.3-the adjudicating authority, to which there was not even an acknowledgment. Since there was total silence on the part of Respondent No.3, Petitioner approached this Court by way of this Petition. 2. For the first time, in the Affidavit-in-Reply, Respondent stated that since there was a matter where identical issue was held against Respondents by the Central Excise Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), Mumbai, and Respondent had preferred an Appeal in this Court, the show cause notice in the case at hand was transferred to the call book. Respondent has ....

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....9, Hon'ble Apex Court has dismissed the Appeal. Mr. Jetly therefore submitted that in January, 2020 Petitioner has approached this Court and therefore there was no delay. 4. The Affidavit-in-Reply does not indicate when the show cause notice first transferred to the call book. Moreover the High Court dismissed the Appeal of Respondents in Greenwich on 6th September, 2018. The Hon'ble Apex Court dismissed Respondent's Appeal on 1st April, 2019. Only on 22nd November, 2019, the show cause notice, it is stated, was taken out of the call book, but still Respondents did nothing. Therefore, in our view, there has been a delay and the case will be squarely covered by a judgment of this Court in Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. Vs. Union of India, W....

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....e answering party could at that stage itself contest the show cause notice and/or point out why the same should be taken up for adjudication. iv. Failure to keep the answering party informed about the fate of the show cause notice and delay in adjudicating the same (for no fault of answering party) impinges on procedural fairness and is thus a violation of the principles of natural justice; v. Adjudication proceedings, delayed for more than a decade (for no fault of answering party and without putting answering party on notice for the reason of delay), defeats the very purpose of issuing show cause notice/s and such delayed adjudication is bad in law; vi. An answering party who does not hear from the authorities f....

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....e, we find that the adjudication of the impugned notices by Respondent No. 3 in the present case was clearly bad in law and consequently the impugned order is also void. Respondent No. 3 had taken up the impugned notices for adjudication after a period of thirteen years from the date of issuance thereof and after submission of reply. This by all counts is well beyond the reasonable period of time in which Respondents were expected and required to act. Additionally, Respondents did not inform Petitioner that the impugned notices had been transferred to call book this coupled with the sudden resurrection of the impugned notices after over a decade has impinged on procedural fairness and put Petitioners in a position of irretrievable prejudice....