A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice S.V.N. Bhatti dismissed the Special Leave Petition filed against Telecom Giant Bharti Airtel Limited by the Commissioner of Income Tax citing the inordinate delay.
The petitioner was represented byK M Natraj (A.S.G), Raj Bahadur Yadav (AOR), Rupesh Kumar, Akshit Pradhan, Rajeev Ranjan and Sunita Sharma.
Records show that even after filing the Appeal, the Appellant/Revenue consistently sought adjournments over the last two years. The reliance on the Additional Affidavit is challenged, as a Coordinate Bench had granted a final opportunity, and the cited Supreme Court judgments are distinguishable due to the significant delay in the present case.
Section 260A of the Income Tax Act mandates filing Appeals within 120 days, but the present Appeal was filed after a delay of 4 years and 100 days. The reasons given in the Application for condonation of delay failed to explain this substantial delay.
“Considering that the Department failed to provide a proper explanation for the delay and only cited various dates without offering satisfactory reasons, it is our opinion that the Department has significantly faltered in presenting acceptable and compelling grounds to condone such a substantial delay.”
“As such, we find that the Appellant/Revenue has not been able to give any adequate or sufficient reasons, to explain the delay. We are therefore unable to condone the huge delay of more than 4 years and 100 days in filing of the present Appeal, which is dismissed as being time barred”, the Delhi High Court bench had noted in the original order.
The inordinate delay of 4 years has been pointed out as the cause of dismissal of the SLP by the bench. The two-judge Supreme Court bench held: “In view of the huge delay of more than four years, which the High Court has refused to condone, we are not inclined to issue notice in the present special leave petitions; hence the same are dismissed.”
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