Aniruddha Dutta vs Addl. Commr. of Cus. and Central Excise

I.P. Mukerji, J.—The writ petitioner is aggrieved by an order of the Tribunal fixing pre-deposit as a condition precedent to hearing of the appeal and thereafter dismissing the appeal on the ground of non-deposit of such sum. As far as the writ petitioner is concerned the pre-deposit directed by the Tribunal was 50% of the penalty, which is Rs. 5,00,000/-.

The petitioner urges two points for reducing or dispensing with this pre-deposit. First is the prima facie case. He says that the Revenue had no evidence at all to prove the case against him. The first adjudicating authority had acted on very unreliable evidence. The second is the case of financial hardship. He says that he is a goldsmith and does not have the financial resources to deposit Rs. 5,00,000/-. Some case has been made out on both points. I am afraid that the Tribunal has not evaluated this case, before fixation of pre-deposit. In my opinion, a direction upon the writ petitioner to deposit a sum of Rs. 5,00,000/- has indeed caused hardship. For his inability to deposit Rs. 5,00,000/-, the appeal has been dismissed.

I am constrained to note that although this writ application was filed in 2006, no step was taken to prosecute this writ application upto this period. However, when this writ application appeared for hearing, I directed notice to be issued upon the Ministry of Law & Justice, Kolkata. I have been shown a notice dated 30th March, 2010 where notice of hearing of this matter has been issued by the Advocate on record for the petitioner upon the said Ministry. I am afraid that the Ministry of Law is also as careless as the petitioner. None appears to represent the respondents. Neither have the respondents filed any affidavit.

Considering the above prima facie ease, two impugned orders of Tribunal dated 13th May, 2005 being Annexure P8 and 8th November, 2005 being Annexure P10 are set aside. Let the appeal be heard by the Tribunal on merits. Considering the above prima facie case of the writ petitioner, he will make a pre-deposit of Rs. 1,00,000/- within a period of eight weeks from the date of issuance of a copy of this order. In default of making this deposit, the Appellate Tribunal may again initiate steps as available in law. But I make it clear that by this order the appeal before the Tribunal stands restored and is deemed to be pending. The Appellate Tribunal is directed to dispose of the appeal on merits within a period of three months from the date of communication of this order, subject to compliance with the above conditions.

The writ application is accordingly disposed of.

All parties concerned are to act on a signed photocopy of this order upon the usual undertakings.

Urgent certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties subject to compliance with all requisite formalities.