By Puloma Dalal, Jayesh Gogri, Mandar Telang Chartered Accountants
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In absence of any prescribed time limit, whether application for restoration of appeal can be filed anytime? Held, No.
Facts:
The Tribunal directed the appellants to deposit entire amount of duty demanded as pre-deposit vide Order dated 5th July, 2005. However, due to non-compliance with the said requirement, the appeal was dismissed vide Order dated 5th October, 2005. Subsequently, the appellants deposited 50% duty on 30th December, 2005 and 20th February, 2006 and requested the Tribunal to restore the Appeal. The Tribunal extended the time limit for predeposit till 30th November, 2006. Further, the payment made was supposed to be reported on 1st December, 2006. Since, the amount was not deposited within even such extended time limit, the Appeal was dismissed vide Order dated 13th December, 2006.
The appellants filed an application for restoration of appeal after four years with the reasoning of financial difficulty and closure of business, they could not deposit balance amount. Further, since there were various decisions in favour of the appellants, the appellants requested to restore the Appeal without insisting on deposit of balance dues.
Held:
The Tribunal observed that the Mumbai Tribunal in case of Kiritkumar J. Shah vs. C.C.E, Nagpur 2011 (22) STR 246 (Tri.-Mum.), had held that three months, being the maximum time allowed for filing appeal, should be considered to be time limit even for filing application for restoration of appeal and that there cannot be any justification to file application at the sweet will of the assessee. Relying on the Mumbai Tribunal’s decision and having regard to inordinate delay in filling such application, the application for restoration was not considered and no merits of the case were not decided.
