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2019 (4) TMI 1713 - MADRAS HIGH COURTRevocation of CHA License - forfeiture of security deposit - time limitation - specific case made out by the writ petitioner is that the notice issued in the present case dated 13.08.2018 under Regulation 20 is beyond the period of ninety days as stipulated statutorily and is liable to be quashed - HELD THAT:- The issue as to whether the 90 day time limit for issuance of notice for revocation of licence under Regulation 20 (1) is mandatory or directory is no longer res integra. There are a series of decisions of the courts that have decided the same holding it to be mandatory. The revenue does not dispute this position either. However, learned counsel urges that in the facts of this case, the period be computed excluding the period when the order of suspension passed under Regulation 19 was stayed by this court. The period when the interim order was in force, 24.08.2017 to 27.07.2018, to be excluded from the period of 90 days from date of receipt of offence report for issuence of notice under Regulation 20(1). The impugned notice has been issued on 13.08.2018 - In the present case, though there was an order of stay passed on 24.04.2018 by this court, there was nothing that prevented the respondent from issuing the show cause notice under Regulation 20 (i) of the CBLR, 2013, within the period of 90 days since the aforementioned period commences from the date of offence report, which, in this case, is 27.02.2018. The Regulation stipulates a seamless procedure commencing from the date of offence report and there is nothing in the regulation that indicates distortion of this time frame by intervening events. Where a provision/regulation spells out a specific period of limitation, such period is mandatory and any exclusion there from should also be provided for specifically. Petition allowed.
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