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Judgment
Mohan, J.—These two writ petitions can be dealt with under a common order. I will now refer to the facts in Writ Petition No. 5156 of
1987. The petitioner is an assessee under the First Income Tax Officer, Tuticorin. In a partition which took place in the petitioner''s family in the
year 1953, he was allotted four acres of land at Palayamkottai Road, Tuticorin. He sold the same for a sum of Rs. 2,70,000 by a registered
document dated March 24, 1980. Action was taken u/s 147(b) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, hereinafter referred to as ""the Act"". The assessment
was reopened after obtaining the previous approval of the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner. On this transaction, the petitioner paid a sum of Rs.
11,000 as capital gains tax. On revision, the Income Tax Officer estimated the market value of the land at Rs. 8,000 per acre as on January 1,
1964. The petitioner went on appeal before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and in the appeal, the market value was increased from Rs. 8,000
to Rs. 10,000 per acre. He preferred a reference application u/s ""56(1) of the Act to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. In filing the said
application, there was a delay of 113 days. The reason for the delay, according to the petitioner, was his heart ailment. The Tribunal held that the
application was time-barred and the reference application itself was rejected on March 11, 1987. It is, in these circumstances, that W.P. No.
5156 of 1987 has been preferred to quash the said order while W.P. No. 5157 of 1987 is for a declaration that section 256(1) of the Act in so far
as it prescribed a time limit of 60 days in the main section and 30 days in the proviso, is invalid and ultra vires the Constitution of India.
Mr. A. Subramanya Rao, learned counsel for the petitioner, would urge that the order of the Tribunal is liable to be set aside as the view taken
by it is wrong. There is no express exclusion of the Limitation Act. Therefore, the Tribunal ought to have looked at it from the point of view of
section 5 of the Limitation Act. As a matter of fact, a Division Bench of this court, in dealing with the rent control legislation, held in the case
reported in Rethinasamy Vs. Komalavalli and Another, that unless there is an express exclusion of the Limitation Act, section 5 could be invoked.
In opposition to this, learned counsel for the Department would urge that this is a special law of limitation. Where, therefore, the law itself has
chosen to lay down that the authority constituted under the Act had no power to condone delay beyond 30 days, an application having been filed
after a delay of 113 days could not be condoned at all since there was no power. The law of limitation is one of procedure and not of substance.
In The Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P., Lucknow Vs. Parson Tools and Plants, Kanpur, , a case arising under the Sales Tax Act, the Supreme
Court observed that if a special legislation happens to lay down a particular limitation contrary to the general law of limitation, it is the former which
shall prevail. Therefore, there are absolutely no merits in either of these two writ petitions.
In order to appreciate this controversy, let me extract section 256(1) of the Act which is challenged before me. It reads as under :
Statement of case to the High Court. - (1) The assessee or the Commissioner may, within sixty days of the date upon which he is served with
notice of an order u/s 254, by application in the prescribed form accompanied where the application is made by the assessee by a fee of two
hundred rupees, require the Appellate Tribunal to refer to the High Court any question of law arising out of such order and, subject to the other
provisions contained in this section, the Appellate Tribunal shall, within one hundred and twenty days of the receipt of such application, draw up a
statement of the case and refer it to the High Court :
Provided that the Appellate Tribunal may, if it is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from presenting the application within
the period hereinbefore specified, allow it to be presented within a further period not exceeding thirty days.
From a reading of the above, it will be clear that within sixty days of the service of notice of an order u/s 254, a reference will have to be asked
for by the assessee or the Commissioner. However, where there is a delay for which sufficient cause is shown, the delay could be condoned for a
period of thirty days only. It is well-settled that the law of limitation is not one of substance but one of procedure. The object of prescribing
limitation is to put an end to litigation, or to state it in other words, the litigation may attain finality. No person has got a vested right as to limitation.
It may vary from case to case and Act to Act. What came to be laid down in Rethinasamy Vs. Komalavalli and Another, was a general statement
of law that unless there is a special exclusion of the Limitation Act, section 5 thereof will continue to have its operation. But, that is entirely different
from the question which I am called upon to decide. The Act has prescribed the limitation. Parliament has chosen to lay down sixty days as the
period of limitation. The power of condonation is only thirty days. Beyond that, there is absolutely no power for the Tribunal to condone. Be it
remembered in this connection that the authorities created under the Act are functionaries under the Act and they derive power under this Act and,
therefore, unless and until such a power is expressly found anywhere, it cannot be done at all, they being creatures of the statute. In this connection,
I may usefully refer to the decision reported in The Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P., Lucknow Vs. Parson Tools and Plants, Kanpur, , wherein
the Supreme Court has observed as follows :
Thus, the principle that emerges is that if the Legislature in a special statute prescribes a certain period of limitation for filing a particular application
thereunder and provides in clear terms that such period, on sufficient cause being shown, may be extended, in the maximum, only up to a specified
time-limit and no further, then the Tribunal concerned has no jurisdiction to treat as within limitation, an application filed before it beyond such
maximum time-limit specified in the statute, by excluding the time spent in prosecuting in good faith and due deligence any prior proceeding on the
analogy of section 14(2) of the Limitation Act.
We have said enough and we may say it again that where the Legislature clearly declares its intent in the scheme and language of a statute, it is the
duty of the court to give full effect to the same without scanning its wisdom or policy, and without engrafting, adding or implying anything which is
not congenial to or consistent with such expressed intent of the law-giver; more so if the statute is a taxing statute. We will close the discussion by
recalling what Lord Hailsham has said recently in regard to importation of the principles of natural justice into a statute, which is a clear and
complete code by itself :
''It is true of course that the courts will lean heavily against any construction of a statute which would be manifestly fair. But they have no power to
amend or supplement the language of a statute merely because in one view of the matter a subject feels himself entitled to a larger degree of say in
the making of a decision than what a statute accords him. Still less is it the function of the courts to form first a judgment on the fairness of an Act of
Parliament and then to amend or supplement it with new provisions so as to make it conform to that judgment''.
Therefore, where the will of Parliament has been so expressed, the petitioner cannot say that a longer period of limitation must be afforded to
him. Law helps those who are vigilant. The petitioner having been a contributory to his own laches, will have to take the blame upon himself. There
are no merits in either of these writ petitions. They are dismissed, However, there will be no order as to costs.