Delay of One day in filing appeal - Commissioner (Appeals) rejects appeal - CESTAT Restores
COMMISSIONERS are learned, respectable, intelligent senior officers of the department ever concerned with collecting more and more revenue without tarnishing the image of the department.
This is a case where a strict law following efficient Commissioner dismissed an appeal because it was filed ONE DAY late, but within his condonable limit.
The wise Commissioner passed a masterly order to dismiss the appeal.
He HELD:
1. The voluminous submissions of the appellant wherein he has dealt with various service tax issues in detail and skillfully interpreted the laws go on to prove that the appellant has access to good legal assistance regarding tax matters.
2. His contention of being confused regarding the filing of the appeal due to shifting of the Commissioner (Appeals)'s office from Mangalore to Mysore is baseless, in this regard. His claim is far-fetched and not reasonable in the given circumstances as I find that the appellant has rightly addressed the letter to the Mysore address which thereby shows that there was no confusion regarding the shifting of the office.
3. I there by find no sufficient cause being made out preventing the appellant from filing the appeal in the prescribed time of two months. As such, I find that the delay in filing the appeal does not merit any condonation and need to be rejected on this ground alone.
The Tribunal observed,
The observations are self explanatory. In our opinion, the Commissioner (Appeals) should have condoned the delay under the circumstances and considered the stay application and appeal on merits in accordance with law. Accordingly, we condone the delay of one day in filing the appeal before the Commissioner and remand the matter to the Commissioner (Appeals) for fresh decision after considering the stay application and appeal filed by the appellant.
The Commissioner was perfectly legal in dismissing the appeal because he did not want to condone a day' s delay. But what did he do for the Government which pays him a decent salary? He has caused unnecessary expenditure for the assessee and the Government. He has added to the burden of the Tribunal which is not able to sustain the huge pendency of appeals.
And finally what did he achieve? A big nothing - he knew pretty well that any appellate court would have condoned that one day ' s delay and the case would come back. A Revenue officer indeed!