PACKWEL ASSOCIATES Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AGGRIEVED by three different orders of adjudication passed against it, the petitioner has filed appeals before the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs (Appeals), Bangalore. These appeals were accompanied by applications seeking waiver of pre-deposit in terms of proviso to section 35f of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944. While the Appeals and the applications were pending consideration coercive proceedings for the recovery of the amount held recoverable from the petitioner appear to have been started against it. Aggrieved the petitioner filed W. P. Nos. 12728-30/1997 in this Court, inter alia seeking a mandamus directing the appellate Authority to hear and dispose of its interim application for waiver of pre-deposit. These writ petitions were together with a bunch of similar other cases disposed of by this Court by a common order dated 30th of June, 1997, with a general direction to the Appellate Authority to dispose of the interim applications filed in the Appeals preferred before it expeditiously and within a period of two months from the date the same are filed if it was for any reason not possible to dispose of the appeal itself. The Adjudicating Authorities were on the other hand directed not to initiate any recovery proceedings against the assessees for a period of three months from the date of the passing of the adjudication orders except in cases where the applications made by the assessee seeking stay/waiver of deposit had been dismissed by the appellate authority. In so far as the interim applications made by the petitioners and others similarly situated with it were concerned, the Appellate Authority Was directed to dispose of the same within a period of four months from the date of the said order. The petitioners were in that connection, directed to appear before the Appellate Authority on the 7th of July 1997 on which date the Appellate Authority was to fix specific dates for hearing of the applications filed by them. Pending disposal of the applications, the interim orders granted against recovery of the debt from the petitioners, were directed to continue.

(2.) THE petitioner's case in the present writ petitions is that it appeared before the Appellate authority on the 7th of July 1997 pursuant to the order of this Court mentioned above, for getting specific dates fixed for the hearing of the waiver/stay applications made by it. According to the petitioner, no dates of hearing were actually fixed by the Appellate Authority on the 7th of july 1997, on the ground that the same would be fixed and conveyed to the petitioner separately. Its further case is that the petitioner did not receive any intimation about the date of hearing fixed by the Appellate Authority till the 1st of August 1997 when it received from the Appellate authority three different orders all dated 17th of July 1997, disposing of the applications filed by the petitioner and directing it to make pre-deposits in the manner and to the extent indicated in each one of those orders. Aggrieved, the petitioner has assailed the said orders in these writ petitions.

(3.) MR. Rajesh Chander Kumar learned Counsel for the petitioner raised a short point in support of these petitions. He urged that the impugned orders of the Appellate Authority were in violation of the principles of natural justice inasmuch as the authority had not afforded to the petitioner any opportunity of being heard in support of its applications for waiver of the deposit. He contended that such a hearing was essential not only by reason of the application of the audi alteram partem Rule to proceedings before the Appellate Authority but also because this Court had while disposing of the previous writ petitions, filed by the petitioner directed such a hearing to be granted. He urged that consequent upon the said direction, the Appellate Authority had issued a Notice, fixing the date of hearing in the applications for the 17th of July 1997, but the notice had for some reason been returned by the Postal Authorities with an endorsement that the same did not carry the correct address of the petitioner. No effort thereafter, argued the learned counsel, was made by the Appellate Authority to either issue a fresh notice or re-direct the one issued earlier. The ex parte disposal of the applications filed by the petitioner, it was submitted, had caused prejudice to the petitioner sufficient to vitiate the impugned orders.