9911796707
TMI Blog2005 (5) TMI 78X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... her get the delay condoned. That the Commissioner of Central Excise should indulge in such a practice is all the more shocking. 3.The Customs Excise Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal (CEGAT) passed an order dated 13th March, 2003 [2003 (154) E.L.T. 711 (Tri. - Del.). It is stated in the application for condonation of delay that the order is dated 17th March, 2003 but that hardly matters because admittedly the order was received by the Appellant on 7th April, 2003. 4.The limitation period for filing an appeal under Section 35H of the Act is six months. Consequently, the appeal should have been filed on or about 7th October, 2003 but was actually filed on 28th September, 2004 under Filing No. 30401. 5.The application for condonation o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... h. 8.The Appellant has also filed CM 153/2005 which is an application for condonation of delay in re-filing the appeal under Section 35H of the Act. In fact, there is no delay in re-filing the appeal under Section 35H of the Act and the application for condonation of delay in re-filing has been filed mechanically, without any application of mind and containing the same averments as CM 152/2005. 9.Under these circumstances, we called upon learned Government counsel to produce the records before us to justify the averment that there had been frequent transfers and a resultant communication gap between the departmental officers and counsel. 10.A perusal of the file produced before us shows that the draft for filing an appeal in this Cour ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... only after this that delay begins to occur. As already mentioned, in spite of this large time gap of six months available to the Appellant, almost one more year went by before the appeal was actually filed. This extremely casual and cavalier approach of the Appellant shows that it was not at all serious in the matter and has just put up some sort of an excuse so that being the Union of India, the Court may be inclined to condone the delay. 14.Every case costs a lot to a litigant in terms of time, effort and money. The Union of India may not be concerned with what expense a litigant would incur but surely a litigant is concerned with what expenses he will have to incur in a case. Merely approaching a Court sometimes causes harassment to a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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