The Bombay High Court has quashed a show cause notice in an Excise Case issued against ICICI Home Finance, for delay in adjudication.
The Petitioner, a wholly owned subsidiary of ICICI Bank Limited, approached the Bombay High Court seeking a declaration that the proceedings initiated pursuant to two show cause notices dated 22nd October 2010 and 21st October 2011 for FY 2005-06 and FY 2006-07, respectively, be declared as non est.
According to petitioner, these show cause notices have to be quashed in view of delay in adjudicating the same.
For show cause notice dated 22nd October 2010 (SCN-1), petitioner filed a reply vide letter dated 28th June 2011. For show cause notice dated 21st October 2011 (SCN-2), petitioner filed reply vide communication dated 12th June 2013. For SCN-1, personal hearing was granted on 5th January 2012 and petitioner filed written submissions dated 19th January 2012. For SCN-2, no personal hearing was provided.
Further, the petitioner received two notices dated 26th November 2020 and 11th January 2021 calling upon petitioner to attend the personal hearing. It is at this stage, the petitioner filed this petition on 25th January 2021. By an order dated 24th January 2022, ad-interim relief was granted to the petitioner and the same was continued as on the date of hearing the matter.
It was noted that, “ In additional affidavit in reply filed through one Sumit Kumar affirmed on 5th April 2023 pursuant to the directions given by this Court on 8th March 2023, the fact that petitioner was not informed about the show cause notices being kept in abeyance and transferred to call book becomes clear. In fact Ms. Desai in fairness states that petitioner was not informed about the fact that the matter has been transferred to call book.”
It was further noted that, “This Court in ATA Freight Line (I) Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Union of India has held that non communication to petitioner about show cause notice being transferred to call book and being kept in abeyance would render the show cause notice to have lapsed. This view in ATA Freight Line (I) Pvt. Ltd. has been confirmed by the Apex Court in Union of India & Ors. Vs. ATA Freight Line (I) Pvt. Ltd.
The bench observed that, “In the case at hand, petitioner is not challenging transfer of show cause notices to call book and keeping the same in abeyance, but is only raising a ground that non communication of transfer to call book is fatal to the case of respondents.”
Thus, the show cause notices dated 22nd October 2010 and 21st October 2011 were thereby quashed and set aside.
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