TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (8) TMI 1118
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....ion for Government authorities because of their gross incompetence. That is not so. Till the Statute subsists, the appeals/petitions have to be filed as per the Statues prescribed. ..... ..... 8. Looking to the period of delay and the casual manner in which the application has been worded, we consider appropriate to impose costs on the petitioner- State of Rs. 25,000/- (Rupees twenty five thousand) to be deposited with the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee. The amount be deposited in four weeks. The amount be recovered from the officers responsible for the delay in filing the special leave petition and a certificate of recovery of the said amount be also filed in this Court within the said period of time." Our anguish while examining this matter can be aptly expressed by borrowing the above quoted portion from the judgment in the case of The State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors vs Bherulal, (2020) 10 SCC 654 decided almost three years ago by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. 2. By way of this application (CM No. 37496/2023) brought under Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code, the appellant/revenue has sought condonation of delay of 498 days in filing the appe....
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.... where the applicant is a government body and the exchequer is involved. On the other hand, learned counsel for respondent/assessee strongly argued that no circumstances have been set up in this application to explain such inordinate delay in filing the appeal, therefore, it is not a case that warrants liberality in condoning the delay; that the delay simpliciter worked to the detriment of the respondent/assessee and failure on the part of the appellant/revenue has resulted in a substantive right accruing in favour of the respondent/assessee. 5. Before proceeding further, it would be apposite to briefly traverse through the relevant legal position. 5.1 The provision under Section 260A(1) of the Income Tax Act lays down that an appeal shall lie to the High Court from every order passed in appeal by the Appellate Tribunal, if the High Court is satisfied that the case involves a substantial question of law. Sub-section (2) of Section 260A mandates that the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner (collectively referred to herein as "the revenue") or an assessee aggrieved by the any order passed by the Tribunal may file an a....
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....tend the period of limitation on equitable grounds. The discretion exercised by the High Court was, thus, neither proper nor judicious. The order condoning the delay cannot be sustained. This appeal, therefore, succeeds and the impugned order is set aside. Consequently, the application for condonation of delay filed in the High Court would stand rejected and the Miscellaneous First Appeal shall stand dismissed as barred by time. No costs." (emphasis is ours) 5.5 In the case of Pundlik Jalam Patil (dead) by LRs vs Executive Engineer Jalgaon Medium Project, (2008) 17 SCC 448, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that basically the laws of limitation are founded on public policy and the courts have expressed at least three different reasons supporting the existence of statutes of limitation, namely (i) that long dormant claims have more of cruelty than justice in them, (ii) that a defendant might have lost the evidence to dispute the stated claim, and (iii) that persons with good causes of action should pursue them with reasonable diligence. While dealing with the issue of condonation of delays on the part of the governmental bodies in filing the appeals....
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....rties equally. Then alone the ends of justice can be achieved. If a party has been thoroughly negligent in implementing its rights and remedies, it will be equally unfair to deprive the other party of a valuable right that has accrued to it in law as a result of his acting vigilantly. 27. .... .... 35. The expression "sufficient cause" implies the presence of legal and adequate reasons. The word "sufficient" means adequate enough, as much as may be necessary to answer the purpose intended. It embraces no more than that which provides a plentitude which, when done, suffices to accomplish the purpose intended in the light of existing circumstances and when viewed from the reasonable standard of practical and cautious men. ..... 36. ....The party shows that besides acting bonafide, it had taken all possible steps within its power and control and had approached the court without any unnecessary delay. The test is whether or not a cause is sufficient to see whether it would have been avoided by the party by the exercise of due care and attention." (emphasis is ours) 5.7 In the case of Union of India vs C.L. Jain Woolen Mills Pvt. Ltd., 131 (2006) D....
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.... applications are also mechanically drafted and are in one standard cyclostyled form. Usually, the appeals are filed with defects. After the Registry points out the defects, the defects are not removed for months together. We do not think that the Supreme Court judgments can be usefully availed of by the Union of India in the colossal situation of negligence and delays as we find in this Court. In fact, it appears that the liberal approach of the higher courts and the understanding of the difficulties of the Government departments shown by the courts have not been appreciated in its proper perspective by the Government departments. Nobody in the Government Department feels any responsibility or takes any responsibility for the delay caused in the movement of files. There is no conscious and systematic efforts to keep the deadline of limitation in view and to speed up the disposal at various stages. If a serious effort is made in the Government Departments to fix the responsibility on the persons causing delay the present sorry state of affairs can be rectified substantially within short time. Occasionally, important questions of law or principles of compensation or heavy financial ....
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....ies keep on relying on judicial pronouncements for a period of time when technology had not advanced and a greater leeway was given to the Government (Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag & Anr vs. Mst. Katiji & Ors. (1987) 2 SCC 107). This position is more than elucidated by the judgment of this Court in Office of the Chief Post Master General & Ors. v. Living Media India Ltd. & Anr. (2012) 3 SCC 563 where the Court observed as under: "27) It is not in dispute that the person(s) concerned were well aware or conversant with the issues involved including the prescribed period of limitation for taking up the matter by way of filing a special leave petition in this Court. They cannot claim that they have a separate period of limitation when the Department was possessed with competent persons familiar with court proceedings. In the absence of plausible and acceptable explanation, we are posing a question why the delay is to be condoned mechanically merely because the Government or a wing of the Government is a party before us. 28) Though we are conscious of the fact that in a matter of condonation of delay when there was no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or ....
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....to understand if the delay of 498 days in filing the appeal was on account of sufficient cause. 8. The appellant/revenue, to expect the least, ought to have explained explicitly the circumstances that led to delay, in the sense that there ought to have been in the very least a broad disclosure of movement of the file to explain such enormous delay of 498 days. But, what to say of that, even the time, if any, spent by the appellant/revenue in obtaining copies of the relevant orders has not been disclosed. Rather, as mentioned above, it appears that the concerned department of appellant/revenue has stocked a cyclostyled proforma of delay condonation applications, which are filed after simply inserting the number of days of delay. Can such laxity on the part of one of the litigants be ignored so as to snatch away from the other party a right which accrued to it on account of non-filing of appeal in time? The answer, according to us, has to be in negative. 9. We are unable to fathom why the State despite having at its disposal an enormous paraphernalia is unable to act with due expedition. In such cases, plea of the State that it could not obtain copies or even certified copie....