The Bombay High Court recently dismissed 40 appeals filed by the Income Tax (IT) department challenging 40 orders of the IT Tribunal for not filing its papers in time. The IT department cited shortage of stamp papers as reason for the delay. The court dismissed the applications which were filed after a delay of over one year.The court, however, held that a delay of one year in filing an appeal was not inordinate in case of a department like IT that undertakes "large-scale litigation." The court however allowed those applications seeking condonation of delay between six days to 345 days on the ground, that they provided a "reasonable explanation" for the delay in filing appeal. IT department contended that every time the department receives an order from the IT Tribunal, a scrutiny report is prepared and sent to the higher officials for approval.Subsequently, the file is sent to a central government advocate for drafting of the appeal following which court formalities are done. The department contended that a delay can be caused at any of these stages. Division bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice A P Deshpande, citing earlier orders, stated that in these cases, government revenue is involved which may not be sufficient ground for condonation of delay but can certainly be considered and cannot ignored by the court.The court, however, observed that in cases where there was a delay of 400 to over 1000 days, there has been no justification, much less a sufficient cause shown, for condonation of delay. The court observed that in such cases where inordinate delay is unexplained, the reasons given are either fanciful or opposed to normal course of human conduct coupled with an element of negligence or irresponsible attitude.
