Commissioner of Customs Vs Sadanand Chaudhary (Delhi High Court)
It would be necessary for this Court to decide whether the delay in filing the same is required to be condoned. The present appeal was filed on 30.07.2019, which was after the delay of 307 days.
Court observed that application seeking condonation of delay is bereft of any particulars. Apart from making a bald statement that the impugned order was misplaced because the office of the counsel of the appellant was under renovation and was found subsequently, no further details are provided.
This Court finds it difficult to accept the aforesaid explanation. It is also not possible for this Court to countenance the procedure, where the Department is clueless whether an appeal has been filed or not; and apparently, remains sanguine once instructions to file have been given to the counsel.
It is also relevant to note that there is a substantial delay of 109 days in re-filing the appeal as well. It is stated that after the appeal was filed, the appeal memo was returned by the Registry with certain objections. The delay in re-filing was due to the fact that “some of the appeal papers got misplaced which included the affidavit accompanying the appeal”. In the process of locating the appeal papers, there occurred some delay in re-filing the appeal with the Registry of this Court.
Apart from the above, it is also seen that there has been an inordinate delay in the prosecuting the present appeal as well. The notice in the present appeal was issued on 18.12.2019, however, the respondent could not be served. The hearings were adjourned thereafter on account of truncated functioning of the Court due to the outbreak of Covid-19. The present appeal was listed on 25.04.2022, however, none appeared for the appellant on that date.
On 10.10.2022, it was noticed that the respondent was not served and orders were passed for issuing fresh notice on steps being taken by the appellant. The matter was thereafter listed on 04.11.2022 before the concerned Registrar, however, no steps were taken by the appellant for service of the notice to the respondent. The notice served was returned back with the remark left and fresh notice was directed to be issued on the correct address of the respondent. However, a fresh notice could not be issued as the appellant did not provide the correct address. Thus, the matter, as it stands today, is that no notice has been served on the respondent.
As stated above, this Court finds no reason to condone the delay in filing the appeal or re-filing the same.
