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2012 (10) TMI 149 - GUJARAT HIGH COURTMaintainability of the appeal before the High Court - whether instructions of 2011 would govern maintainability of all pending appeals of the Revenue? - Held that:- With respect the question of interpretation of instructions which are other-wise not ambiguous on the basis of litigation policy, in our view, would not arise. Secondly, the view that prospective application of the instructions would not lead to any absurdity. If by applying the instructions prospectively, certain appeals would be decided on merits, because the appeals were filed prior to issuance of the new instructions, the same cannot be stated to be absurd. A counter situation also may arise if such instructions are applied with retrospective effect to all pending appeals whereby an appeal would be dismissed without examination on merits simply because the same survived for a longer period than the cognate appeals. It can be seen that the various High Courts have taken a view that the instructions of 2011 cannot be applied to all pending appeals, particularly, having regard to the language used in paragraph 11 thereof that this instructions will apply to appeals filed on or after 9th February 2011. Thus the view adopted by this Court in case of Sureshchandra Durgaprasad Khatod (HUF) (2012 (9) TMI 20 - GUJARAT HIGH COURT) requires reconsideration as the instructions of 2011 provide revised monetary limits permitting the Revenue to file appeals before the Tribunal, High Court and Supreme Court. Paragraph 11 thereof clearly provides that such instructions will apply to appeals filed on or after 9th February 2011. It is further made clear that cases where appeals have been filed before 9th February 2011 will be governed by the instructions on the subject operative at the time when such appeal was filed. Any other interpretation to make the instructions of 2011 applicable to all pending appeals would not be permissible and would be doing violation to the plain language used in the instructions. These provisions contained in the instructions of 2011 have not been given due weightage in Sureshchandra Durgaprasad Khatod case above. Thus case is to be placed before Hon'ble Chief Justice for constituting a Bench for answering the reference.
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