2025 (5) TMI 1758

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....nt - appellant that the present appeal has been filed to challenge the order of Commissioner (Appeals) bearing No. 041/2021 dated 11.2.2021. The said order was received by the applicant on 15.2.2021 through its Accountant i.e. during the Covid-19 lock down period. After the lock down was lifted, the said Accountant did not join the office and left without informing about the order of Commissioner (Appeals) to have been received. The appellant came to know about the said order only after initiation of recovery proceedings. Hence the delay which has occurred in filing the present appeal is purely unintentional but has occurred due to the reasons beyond control of the appellant. 2. Learned counsel has relied upon the decision of Hon'ble Sup....

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....ation. This observation makes it abundantly clear that the appeal should have been filed on 17.5.2021 as has also been acknowledged in the said para 2 itself. Apparently and admittedly the present appeal has been filed on 31.5.2024 i.e. after substantial delay of 824 days. No doubt Hon'ble Supreme Court in the suo moto writ petition vide WP(C) No. 3 of 2020 in Misc. Application No. 665 of 2021 and Misc. Application No. 21 of 2022 has held with the following directions: (1) The order dated 23.03.2020 is restored and in continuation of the subsequent orders dated 08.03.2021, 27.04.2021 and 23.09.2021, it is directed that the period from 15.03.2020 till 28.02.2022 shall stand excluded for the purposes of limitation as may be prescribe....

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.... 7. No doubt Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of M/s Katiji (supra), as relied upon by the appellant, has held that the Court should adopt liberal and justice oriented approach for the purposes of condonation of delay. However, in another decision in the case of New India Insurance Company Ltd. Vs. Smt. Shanti Mishra - AIR 1976-SC-237 (SC)  it has been held that the discretion given by Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 should not be defined or crystallized so as to convert or discretionary matter into a rigid rule of law. The expression "sufficient cause" should receive a liberal construction however, sufficient cause must cover the whole period of delay. In an earlier decision in the case of Sitaram Ramcharan Etc. Vs. M.N. Nagarsh....