Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Delhi
Digvijay Synthetics Ltd. vs Commissioner Of Central Excise, Jaipur on 5 February, 2002
Equivalent citations: 2002(141)ELT709(TRI-DEL)
ORDER P.S. Bajaj, Member (J)
1. Heard both sides.
2. The bare perusal of the impugned order shows that the adjudicating authority had violated the rules of natural justice as no proper opportunity was given to the appellants for defending their case. This fact was not even disputed by the learned S.D.R. Therefore, the appellants have a strong, prima facie, case and as such their stay applications are allowed unconditionally.
3. With the consent of both the sides, we proceed to decide the appeals also. The appellants in the above captioned appeals have been saddled with the duty demand and penalty as detailed in the impugned order itself for having suppressed the production and clearances of man-made fabrics wilfully, during the disputed period 1994-98, by the adjudicating authority (Commissioner) through the impugned order. The main ground on which this order has been assailed before us by the learned Counsel is that, no proper opportunity was afforded to the appellants to put up their defence. They were not even heard before passing the impugned order. They requested for adjournment of the hearing on 20-3-2001 on account of marriage of the son and daughter of the Director of the Company at Bombay on 23-3-2001, and even enclosed along with the letter photocopy of the train reservation tickets taken by them, for Bombay, but the adjudicating authority closed the hearing and passed the impugned order. The impugned order, according to the learned Counsel, had been passed in violation of the rules of natural justice and as such deserves to be set aside.
4. The learned SDR has not been able to rebut the contention of the learned Counsel that the appellants had requested for adjournment of the hearing on 20-3-2001 and that the adjudicating authority did not accede to their request and closed the hearing.
5. We have gone through the record and heard both the sides. The bare perusal of the impugned order shows that on receipt of the show cause notice, the appellants requested for the supply of the relied upon documents. This request was made by them vide letter dated 31-7-1999. Thereafter, they made request vide letter dated 7-9-1999 for the release of non-relied upon documents seized from their factory in order to enable them to file the reply to the show cause notice. Instead of supplying the documents, they were asked to approach the Divisional Office for collecting the documents. The documents were finally delivered to them on 22-1-2001. Thereafter, personal hearing of the matter, was fixed and three dates for hearing were given. The last date of personal hearing fixed was 20-3-2001 and on that date the appellants requested for adjournment on account of the marriage of the son and daughter of the Director of the Company. But the adjudicating authority without sufficient cause closed the hearing of the case and passed the impugned order. Therefore, apparently there had been violation of rules of natural justice by the adjudicating authority. The adjudicating authority should have allowed adjournment of hearing on 20-3-2001 when genuine request was made by the appellants. The fact that earlier to that date, three dates were fixed for personal hearing and the appellants did not turn up, could not be made basis for rejecting the request of the appellants for adjournment on 20-3-2001. On the earlier three dates of personal hearing; the adjudicating authority voluntarily without any reservation gave the adjournments and as such the adjournments granted on those dates could not be thereafter taken into consideration for closing the matter on 20-3-2001 on which date the appellants had genuine difficulty in putting up appearance.
6. In the case of State Bank of India v. Chandra Govindji, (2000) 8 SCC 532, the Apex Court had observed as under -
"In ascertaining whether a party had reasonable opportunity to put forward his case or not, one should not ordinarily go beyond the date on which adjournment is sought for. The earlier adjournment, if any, granted would certainly be for reasonable grounds and that aspect need not be once again examined if on the date on which adjournment is sought for the party concerned has a reasonable ground. The mere fact that in the past adjournments had been sought for would not be of any materiality. If the adjournment had been sought for on flimsy grounds the same would have been rejected. [Para 7]"
Therefore, from the impugned order itself it is evident that the adjudicating authority had failed to observe the rules of natural justice while passing the impugned order and this has certainly resulted in the mis-carriage of justice. Consequently, the impugned order of the Commissioner cannot be sustained and the same deserves to be set aside.
7. In view of the discussion made above, the impugned order of the Commissioner is set aside and the case is sent back to the adjudicating authority for fresh decision, in accordance with law, after providing sufficient opportunity of hearing to the appellants.
8. As a result, both the appeals are allowed by way of remand.