PETITIONER:
COMMISSIONER OF WEALTH TAX
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
AMATEUR RIDERS CLUB
DATE OF JUDGMENT17/12/1993
BENCH:
VENKATACHALLIAH, M.N.(CJ)
BENCH:
VENKATACHALLIAH, M.N.(CJ)
MOHAN, S. (J)
CITATION:
1994 SCC Supl. (2) 603
ACT:
HEADNOTE:
JUDGMENT:
ORDER
1. We have heard Shri S.C. Manchanda, learned senior
counsel for the Revenue.
2. This special leave petition filed on November 16, 1993
is delayed by 264 days. For quite some time in the past,
this Court has been making observations as to the grave
prejudice caused to public interest by appeals brought on
behalf of the Government being lost on the point of
limitation. Such observations have been made for over a few
years in the past. But there seems to be no conspicuous
improvement as is apparent in the present petition which is
filed in November 1993. The explanation for the delay, had
better be set out in petitioner’s own words:
“(g) The Advocate-on-Record got the special
leave petition drafted from the drafting
Advocate and sent the same for approval to the
Board on June 24, 1993 along with the case
file.
(h) The Board returned the case file to the
Advocate-on-Record on July 9, 1993 who resent
the same to the Board on September 20, 1993
requesting that draft SLP was not approved by
the Board. The Board after approving the
draft SLP sent this file to CAS on October 1,
1993.”
3. This explanation is incapable of furnishing a
judicially acceptable ground for condonation of delay.
After the earlier observations of this Court made in several
cases in the past, we hoped that the matters might improve.
There seems to be no visible support for this optimism.
There is a point beyond which even the courts cannot help a
litigant even if the litigant is Government which is itself
under the shackles of bureaucratic indifference. Having
regard to the law of limitation which binds everybody, we
cannot find any way of granting relief. It is true that
Government should not be treated as any other private
litigant as, indeed, in the case of the former the decisions
to present and prosecute appeals are not individual but are
institutional decisions necessarily bogged down by the
proverbial red-tape. But there are limits to this also.
Even with all this latitude, the explanation offered for the
delay in this case merely serves to aggravate the attitude
of indifference of the Revenue in protecting its common
interests. The affidavit is again one of the stereotyped
affidavits making it susceptible to the criticism that the
Revenue does not seem to attach any importance to the need
for promptitude even where it affects its own interest.
+ From the Judgment and Order- dated 9-4-1992 of the High
Court of Judicature at Bombay in Wealth Tax Appln. No. 441
of 1991
605
4. The application for condonation of delay is,
accordingly, dismissed. The special leave petition is,
therefore, dismissed as barred by time.
Court Masters
608