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2014 (11) TMI 247 - AT - Service TaxCondonation of delay - Appeal wrongly filed before Commercial tax officer - Delay occured in transferring the appeal - when an appeal is filed before a wrong authority, whether that can be taken as the date of filing appeal even if appeal was received by proper appellate authority subsequently - Management, Maintenance or Repair Service - Held that:- there was definitely a mistake committed in filing appeal even though it was drafted correctly and the authority was correctly mentioned. It has to be noted that even Commercial Tax officer did not bother to take any action and did not bother to look into the papers. If they were to do so properly, the appeal papers would have been returned to the appellant or would have been forwarded to the proper authority. This aspect also has to be taken into account. The Govt. office also has to take action on the papers received and no action was taken on the papers received from a citizen of the country. We cannot simply deny a citizen s appellate right just because they filed appeal with a wrong authority. because of the peculiar circumstances in this case, it would be appropriate not to deny opportunity to the appellant in this case and accordingly, we take a view that date of filing appeal before Commercial Tax officer has to be taken as the date on which appeal was filed. Since the date of filing appeal before Commercial Tax officer is within the period of limitation, appeal could not have been rejected on the ground that the same has been filed beyond the period of condonation. - matter remanded back - Decided in favour of assessee.
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