ORDER
P.G. Chacko, Member (J)
1. One of the applications filed by the appellants is for condonation of delay of 200 days involved in the filing of their appeal and the other is for waiver of predeposit and stay of recovery in respect of the amount of service tax demanded by the lower authorities.
2. The impugned Order-in-Appeal dated 31-8-2005 was received by the appellants on 3-9-2005 and the appeal was filed on 23-6-2006 with the above delay of 200 days. The application for condonation of this delay is accompanied by two affidavits of Shri M. Rahamathulla, Managing Director of the appellant-company. The first affidavit states that the deponent was not aware of appeal provisions. He is said to have been unable to get any proper information as to the place and mode of filing appeal. Moreover, “he was also ill”. The second affidavit of Shri M. Rahamathulla states that he was suffering from severe depression ever since his appeal was decided against him by the Commissioner (Appeals). Moreover, he had fallen into severe debts and was persistently harassed by his creditors for repayment of moneys borrowed by him. He had also lost all his business on account of cancellation of IATA recognition. The affidavit further says that the deponent started recovering from depression only just before the filing of the appeal. Ld. Counsel reiterates these averments of the Managing Director of the company and prays for condonation of the delay of the appeal. Ld. SDR opposes this prayer by submitting that the reasons stated in the affidavit were not supported by any evidence.
3. After giving careful consideration to the submissions, we are not impressed with the stand taken by the Managing Director in his affidavit. The first affidavit is dated 23-6-2006, the date of filing of the appeal. Apparently, as originally filed, it did not contain any plea of illness. The sentence, “Moreover, I was also ill”, was apparently inserted in para 4 of the affidavit subsequent to its filing inasmuch as this correction has not been initialled by the deponent. The plea of depression is a new plea raised in the second affidavit filed on 9-12-2006 and that too is not supported any medical certificate. In the normal course of business, when a Managing Director is under depression, other Directors of the company must manage the affairs of the company including filing of appeals with the Tribunal. As rightly pointed out by Id. SDR, the delay of 200 days has not been satisfactorily explained by the appellants. In the result, the application gets dismissed and consequentially the appeal also gets dismissed along with the stay application.
(Order dictated and pronounced in open Court.)