TMI Blog2018 (10) TMI 170X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... h Court order, the Appeal to the Tribunal is filed after consuming 51 days. Thus, if one excludes the 28 days available from the 51 days, the Appellant has to explain 23 days delay. This delay was held to be not sufficiently explained by the impugned order only on the ground that as the Petitioner whose Petition is pending in the High Court for over a year, the Appellant should have been ready with their Appeal to the Tribunal and filed it immediately after the High Court refused to entertain their Petition. The aforesaid basis of the rejection of the application for condonation of delay was not justified as the explanation offered for the delay viz. preparing the Appeal to file it to the Tribunal is reasonable. A party who prosecutes a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... dispute is narrow. 6. The brief facts leading to this Appeal are: (i) The Commissioner of Service Tax on 13th January 2016 passed an order confirming the service tax of ₹ 24.83 Crores as for the period from October 2009 to September 2011. The above order dated 13 January 2016 also imposed penalty upon the Appellant; (ii) The Appellant was of the view that the order dated 13th January 2016 (received on 2nd March 2016) is without jurisdiction and would warrant interference of this Court in its extra ordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Thus, filed a Writ Petition being Writ Petition No. 1724 of 2016 (Team Global Logistics (P) Limited Vs. UoI) on 4th May 2016; (iii) However, by an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . The impugned order dated 15th November 2017 of the Tribunal held that the principles contained in Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 i.e. exclusion of time spent bonafide in prosecuting a proceeding before a forum which does not have jurisdiction is inapplicable to statutory appeals. This has now been rejected by the Supreme Court in M.P. Steel Corporation Vs. Commissioner of Central Excise 2015(319) ELT 373 (S.C.). It has held that the principle of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 is applicable even when in respect of statutory Appeals filed before the Tribunal from the orders passed by the Collector of Customs (Appeals) under the Customs Act, 1962. Thus, the period of time spent in prosecuting the Petition against the orde ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ion bonafide expecting to succeed cannot be expected to keep preparing for an alternate remedy even before his Petition is rejected. Further, the Apex Court has repeatedly held that a liberal approach should be adopted while deciding an application for condonation of delay. (see Collector Vs. Mst Katiji 28 ELT 185 ). Therefore, in the present facts, we find that the Appellant has sufficiently explained the delay. 9. Thus, the substantial question of law is answered in the negative i.e. in favour of the Appellant-Assessee against the Respondent-Revenue. 10. In the above view, we set aside the impugned order of the Tribunal dated 15th November 2017. We condone the delay in filing the Appeal from the order dated 13th January 2016 of t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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