CANNON STEELS PVT. LTD. Vs. CESTAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 5 -5 -2011 we had passed the following order: -

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the respondent has, however, made available to us a copy of the additional affidavit in court and we have perused the same. In our considered view, the affidavit gives no answer to the aspects dealt with in our order. A perusal of the affidavit shows that the petitioner has tried to cover up the issue of limitation by seeking recourse to the RTI Act. We have already noticed that this is a peculiar matter where the litigant in his own pending litigation seeks information through RTI Act rather than carrying out inspection of the case record, which is available as of right. We may notice that two RTI applications were filed; first one raising four questions and the second one raising 28 questions. The only thing left for the petitioner was to seek advisory opinion from this court by taking recourse to the RTI Act. We strongly deprecate this process adopted by the petitioner in seeking to get over the issue of limitation by claiming that the petitioner had engaged an advocate who had not advised the petitioner properly and thereafter the petitioner resorted to the RTI Act to find out the progress in his case. No affidavit of the advocate is filed nor any complaint filed with the Bar Council.

(3.) THE judgment cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner in the case of State of Nagaland v. Lipok AO and others, : (2005) 35CC 752 : 2005 (183) E.L.T. 337 (S.C.) does not come to the aid of the appellant apart from the fact that the observations made therein were in the context of a shootout incident investigated by the police in a case under Sections 302/307/326/34 IPC.