JUDGMENT
Mukul Mudgal, J.
1. This judgment will govern the disposal of the three writ petitions. These writ petitions arise from an order of forfeiture under the Smugglers & Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the SAFEMA Act’). These writ petitions challenge the Orders dated 12.2.2001; 14.2.2001 & 14.2.2001 respectively, passed by the Appellate Tribunal for Forfeited Property (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Tribunal’) under Section 12 of the SAFEMA Act by which Orders the Tribunal came to a finding that the Orders dated 20th of March, 1980 & 11th of October, 1979 (which are the subject-matter of CW. 1297/01; CW. 1302/01 & 1538/01) of the Competent Authority under Section 7 of the Act were duly served on the appellant by affixture and in that view of the matter the Tribunal declined to condone the delay of about two decades in preferring the appeals before it and accordingly dismissed the appeals.
2. The Tribunal while dealing with the plea of the petitioners that the impugned orders of the Competent Authority were not served on them, found that procedure as prescribed by Order V of Civil Procedure Code, 1908 is not applicable in so far as service of notices and orders under SAFEMA are concerned and the relevant procedure applicable is thus contained in Clause (a) of Section 22 of the SAFEMA Act. The Tribunal also found that the plea of the learned counsel for the petitioner/appellant before it that there was a requirement to affix the Order on the notice board of the ITO was not contained in Clause (b) of Section 22 of the SAFEMA Act and, therefore, found that the orders were served by affixture as required by Section 22(b) of the Act. The Tribunal also inter alia held as under:
“From the records it is seen that the impugned order was sent to the appellant by registered post on 22.3.1980. On 14.4.1980 it was endorsed that the appellant had left without address and hence the letter was returned to the sender. Again on 18.4.1980 and 29.4.1980, attempts were made to serve the appellant and on 21.4.1980 it was endorsed on the cover that the addressee hesitated to receive the order and hence it was sent back to the sender. Thereafter, the Income-tax Officer, Distt-III(iii), Amritsar who was entrusted with the task of serving the order on the appellant was avoiding service of the order and hence he ordered the notice server to serve the order by affixture on the notice board of the office and also on some conspicuous part of the house where the appellant resides or where he carried on his business. Pursuant to the said direction, the order was affixed in the presence of the witness on 9.5.1980. The Learned Counsel firstly contended that the Competent Authority made no efforts to serve the order on any of the adult members of the appellant’s family or on the Advocate of the appellant, who is also an agent of the appellant and hence, Clause (a) of Section 22 was not complied with.”
The Tribunal further found that it was not obligatory to send the notice or order to the person and also to his agent as Clause 22(a) uses the phrase “or”. The Tribunal further found that the appellant’s plea that the witness present at the time of affixture should have been a literate person was without merit and found that there is no requirement of law that only literature persons should be witnesses. Section 22(b) of the Act reads as under:
“22. Service of notices and orders- Any notice or order issued or made under this Act shall be served-
x x x x x x
(b) if the notice or order cannot be served in the manner provided in Clause (a), by affixing it on a conspicuous place in the property in relation to which the notice or order is issued or made, or on some conspicuous part of the premises in which the person for whom it is intended is known to have last resided or carried on business or personally worked for gain.”
3. The learned counsel for the petitioners further challenges the existence of the witness of affixture, namely, Shri Kartar Singh Mahzabi whose thumb impression as a witness of signature is sought to be assailed by filing of an affidavit of Sarpanch of the Village. An affidavit seeking to lead evidence cannot be permitted to be filed in a writ petition and this affidavit cannot be considered. He has further sought to contend that there mere reliance on thumb impression without the parentage of the person affixing the thumb impression cannot be relied upon in law. He further submits that such a plea was raised before the Tribunal though not noticed in the impugned orders. He further submits that there is no affidavit of a Competent Officer, stating that the impugned Orders have been served on the appellants/petitioners. The petitioners have not stated in the writ petition that this plea about the parentage of the person, affixing the thumb impression though raised before the Tribunal was not dealt with by the Tribunal. Accordingly, the petitioners cannot be permitted to raise this plea for the first time in a writ Court as the Court is bound to go by the records of the case as recorded by the Tribunal, particularly when it is presided over by a retired Judge of High Court. Furthermore a perusal of the impugned Orders also shows that the petitioners have chosen to stay away from the proceedings pending before the Competent Authority under Section 8 of the SAFEMA Act in spite of service. There is no dispute that the petitioners refused to accept the service of the notice for personal hearing, issued to them by the Competent Authority under the SAFEMA Act.
4. In this respect, the Competent Authority recorded the following findings:
“The case was fixed for hearing on 19.9.1979 by issuing a notice under Section 7(1) dated 24.8.1979 Along with a questionnaire-letter of the same date. In the said notice, he was specifically requested to file his detailed reply explaining the sources from which investments in the properties mentioned in the schedule to the notice under Section 6(1) were made. The registered cover containing the notice under Section 7(1) and letter was served on him on 1.9.1979, but there was no response. A fresh notice under Section 7(1) was issued on 26.9.1979 fixing the date of hearing on 8.10.1979. The registered envelope came back with the following remarks:
“The addressee is out of station, so it is in deposit.
sd/- 4.10.79.
- do - 5.10.79. - do - 6.10.79. The addressee hesitates to receive it, so it is returned herewith as undelivered. sd/- 8.10.79." The above remarks of the postal official speak for themselves. The affected person's refusal amounted to service."
5. The learned counsel for the petitioners further submits that the petitioner in CW. 1297/01 being a Director, Punjab Land Mortgage Bank, Anjala from 1975-1979 was required to be out of station during the course of his work and accordingly his absence cannot be found suspicious. The fact that the petitioner was a Director, Punjab Land Mortgage Bank in fact demonstrates the fact that the petitioner was not an illiterate person and was well aware of the legal consequences of refusal of service. In any case the petitioner’s conduct before the Competent Authority discloses the mindset which seems to have persisted thereafter also.
6. In that view of the matter, I am fully satisfied that the impugned Orders, passed by the Tribunal are perfectly in consonance with the law and no ground of any kind has been made out by the petitioners to invoke the writ jurisdiction. The learned counsel for the petitioners further relies upon prayer (c) of the writ petition to contend that according to him the impugned orders passed under SAFEMA Act are without jurisdiction, unreasonable, unjust, improper and this prayer ought to be separately considered in these writ petitions. I am afraid that a writ petition is not a forum for raising such plea which could have been raised before the Competent Authority and/or the Tribunal provided the petitioners approached it within time. In any event in so far as the plea of lack of jurisdiction is concerned it is not demonstrated how the Competent Authority or the Appellate Tribunal lacked jurisdiction. Accordingly, the writ petitions are without any merit and are thus dismissed with no orders as to costs. Interim orders dated 28th February, 2001 & 12th March, 2001 stand vacated with effect from 27th of November, 2001.
7. In view of the above, the writ petitions are accordingly disposed of.