TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (8) TMI 897
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.... "5. I have carefully gone through the case records, grounds of appeal, the averments made during the course of personal hearing, oral submissions, application of condonation of delay and submissions made through letter dated 21.10.2019 and relevant provisions of the Act. First of all, I take up the issue of condonation of delay in filing the appeal. The reason of delay in filing the appeal as submitted by the Appellant are that ""Director of the company had gone out of India and no person was competent to take decision issue of filing the appeal" 6. I find that the adjudicating authority passed the impugned order on 23.03.2018 which was received by the appellant on 23.03.2018. The appeal against the said impugned order has t....
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.... by the Supreme Court that once the limitation period is over the appellant is called upon to explain the day-to-day delay. In the present case it is observed that the appellant has made general pleas about the delay in filing the appeal and, as mentioned above, the appellant was not diligent enough in pursuing the appellate remedy. In the facts and circumstances of the case, therefore, the delay in filing the appeal is not condoned." 8. I find that the reason for condonation of delay given by the Appellant is very contradictory and irrational for not filing the appeal within the prescribed time limit. The appellant has not been able to satisfy me in this regard through their evidence submitted vide letter dated 21.10.2019. In such....
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....hered away. Commissioner (Appeals) in this case by not allowing the application for condonation of delay has denied the opportunity to the appellant to put his case on merits in appeal filed. There is enough reason to justify the delay of twenty three days ideally such delay should have been condoned and appeal heard on merits. 3.4 In case of Municipal Corporation, Gwalior vs Ramcharan (D) by Lrs [2002 (142) E.L.T. 275 (S.C.)], Hon'ble Supreme Court has held:- "..... Valuable rights of the parties in an immoveable property are involved. On the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the opinion that the High Court ought to have been taken a liberal, and not a rigid and too technical a view of the issue bef....
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....ation under any of the provisions of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, may be admitted after the prescribed period if the appellant or the applicant satisfies the Court that he had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal or making the application within such period." 1. Ordinarily a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late. 2. Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out at the very threshold and cause of justice being defeated. As against this when delay is condoned the highest that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties. 3. "Every day's delay must be explained" does not mean that a pedantic approach....
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....harge of the matter is directly hit or hurt by the judgment sought to be subjected to appeal) and the inherited bureaucratic methodology imbued with the note-making, file pushing, and passing-on-the-buck ethos, delay on its part is less difficult to understand though more difficult to approve. In any event, the State which represents the collective cause of the community, does not deserve a litigant-non-grata status. The Courts therefore have to be informed with the spirit and philosophy of the provision in the course of the interpretation of the expression "sufficient cause". So also the same approach has to be evidenced in its application to matters at hand with the end in view to do even-handed justice on merits in preference to the appr....