VIJENDER KUMAR ANJAN Vs. APPELLATE AUTHORITY AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition has been filed under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India for quashing the order dated 30.06.2011(Annexure P-2) whereby the Custom Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal had dismissed the application of the petitioner for condonation of delay and resultantly, dismissed the appeal.

(2.) The pleaded case of the petitioner is that he was working with M/s Dollar Poly Pipe India Limited and thereafter, was appointed as Director in the company. In the year 2004 he resigned from the company and also from the directorship and had nothing to do with the affairs of the company after that show cause notice had been issued on 02.02.2007 to M/s Dollar Poly Pipes Limited, its Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Dharamvir Bansal and V.K.Garg, Managing Director, proposing confiscation of goods and imposing penalty on the petitioner by raising a demand of Rs. 7,82,711/- in respect of duty free imported goods and a penalty of Rs. 25 lacs had been imposed upon the petitioner by the Commissioner vide the order dated 05.03.2009. The order dated 05.03.2009, was passed by respondent No.2, Commissioner of Customs and was sent to the address of the company at 529, Sector 12, Panchkula. The company was in possession of the said office earlier but the same was taken over by the Bank in the year 2006 resulting in non-receipt of the order by the petitioner. The petitioner came to know about the order when recovery proceedings were initiated against him by the custom department. He filed an appeal before the appellate authority after obtaining the copy of the order on 26.02.2010. An appeal had been filed under Section 129-A of the Custom Act, 1962 along with an application for condonation of delay on the ground that the copy of the order was sent to the erstwhile address of the company which had been taken over by the Bank and the petitioner had resigned from the company in the year 2004. Pleadings were also put forth on merits of the case regarding the non-liability of petitioner. The appeal of the petitioner had been dismissed on the ground of limitation whereas the other appeals filed by the Directors were still pending.

(3.) Written statement was filed by respondent No.2 pleading that the appeal had to be filed within 180 days and the petitioner did not make any request for condonation of delay. The petitioner had received show cause notice in February, 2007 on the same address and also furnished its reply to the show cause notice but did not intimate the department about his new address. D.K.Sharma, another noticee in show cause notice, was working as the Accountant for both the firms, M/s Dollar Poly Pipes Limited and M/s Shivalik Plastichem (India) Limited and was working under the directions of Vinod Kumar Bansal and had received the notice and filed appeal on 16.06.2009. Being an MBA, and while working with Vinod Kumar Bansal, he had complete knowledge of law. Accordingly, the order of the Tribunal was defended.