JUDGMENT
Bhaskar Bhattacharya, J.
1. All these four mandamus appeals were heard together as the points involved herein are almost the same.
2. The unsuccessful writ petitioners are the appellants before us. In the month of June, 2005, the appellants herein filed four separate writ applications thereby challenging four different orders, all passed by Divisional Forest Officer, Kharagpur Social Forest Tree Division, and the authorised officer of the district of Midnapur, sometime in the month of May, 2003, thereby dismissing the applications filed by the four writ petitioners for the issue of licence for running of sawmills in terms of West Bengal Forest (Establishment of Industries) Rules, 1982.
3. In all the four matters, the learned Single Judge refused to entertain the writ application on the ground of delay in approaching the High Court, inasmuch as, the order sought to be impugned was passed in the month of May, 2003 whereas the writ applications were filed in the month of June, 2005, long after the expiry of two years and there was no explanation of delay in filing the application.
4. Being dissatisfied, the writ petitioners have preferred these four mandamus appeals.
5. Mr. Dutt, the learned senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellants vehemently contended before us that if His Lordship was not satisfied with the delay, an opportunity could be given to the appellants for filing supplementary affidavit explaining the delay but on the ground of delay alone, Mr. Dutt contends, the writ applications should not have been dismissed.
6. Mr. Dutt tried to convince us that these are the fit cases where the learned Single Judge ought to have entered into the merit of the matters and granted relief to his clients notwithstanding the fact that there was some delay in moving the writ application. Mr. Dutt contends that if the order impugned is patently illegal, mere delay in moving the writ application cannot be an impediment in granting relief to the aggrieved citizen.
7. Mr. Dasgupta, the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the State-respondent has opposed the aforesaid contention of Mr. Dutt and has contended that in the absence of any explanation in the body of the writ application, the learned Single Judge rightly refused to entertain such application. Mr Dasgupta contends that before the learned Single Judge, no prayer was even made for filing supplementary affidavit explaining the delay.
8. Even on merit, Mr. Dasgupta contends that under the relevant rules, 31″ December, 1996 being the cut-off date and the writ petitioners having approached the authority long thereafter, the concerned officer rightly refused their prayer. Mr. Dnsgupta further points out that the appropriate authority even disbelieved the case of the writ petitioners on merit holding that there was no sufficient material in support of the claim made in the application. He, therefore, prays for dismissal of these appeals.
9. After hearing the learned Counsel for the parties and after going through the materials on record we find that in the writ applications there was no explanation for the delay of long period of two years in approaching the High Court. It is true that there is no specific period of limitation for moving a High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, but, law is equally settled that the applicant should come within a reasonable period and if there is any delay, that should be explained in the writ application itself and if the Court is convinced that the petitioner was prevented by sufficient case from approaching within reasonable time, in appropriate cases, the Court can condone the delay.
10. It is also a trite law that if the order sought to be challenged is, on the face of it, passed by an authority having no jurisdiction or in excess of his jurisdiction, causing infringement of legal or fundamental right of the writ petitioners, the Court can in appropriate cases ignore the delay in moving the writ application.
11. In the cases before us, the writ petitioners have challenged the order passed by the appropriate authority for considering the case of grant of licence for running/of sawmill. The fact that the said officer is the proper officer having appropriate jurisdiction is not in dispute. It appears that according to the relevant rules, 31st December, 1996 was the last date after which the concerned officer was incompetent to entertain any new application for grant of sawmill so long the policy-decision is not changed by appropriate authority.
12. In such a situation, it cannot be said that the order passed by the concerned authority was ex facie without jurisdiction or even illegal and such being the position, the question of delay is a relevant factor.
13. Therefore, the learned Single Judge did not commit any illegality in refusing to entertain the writ application long two years after the passing of the order, when there was no explanation of delay.
14. As Mr. Dutt elaborately made submissions on merit also, we propose to deal with the n: Tit of the cases, although we are of the view that the learned Single Judge did not commit any wrong in refusing to enter into the merit.
15. In these cases, as pointed out earlier, law having fixed a particular date, being 31″ December, 1996, as the last date of entertaining application for the time being and such policy-decision not having been modified yet, in our view, the concerned officer rightly refused to grant any relief to the writ petitioners when admittedly the applications in the prescribed form was filed long after that date.
16. Apart from the aforesaid question, we find that authorised officer has also disbelieved the assertion of the writ petitioners made in the application for grant of licence of sawmill. They claimed that they had been running the business of sawmill from “around the year 1980 whereas one of the applicants is today hardly 33 years old. Similarly, the concerned officer raised doubt about purchase of machinery at the relevant point of time. Those are essentially the questions of fact and the concerned officer having disbelieved those assertions of fact by assigning cogent reason, a Writ Court cannot re-appreciate those factual aspects when findings recorded by the competent authority cannot be said to be a perverse finding of fact.
17. Regarding entertainment of application after the cut-off date, Mr. Dutt tried to convince us that if his clients were not aware of the position of law and for that reason, they should not suffer and in support of such contention, Mr. Dutt relied upon the following decisions:
(i) Hindustan Steel Limited v. State of Orissa reported in 83 ITR 26.
(ii) C.I.T. v. Biju Patnaik AIR 1978 Orissa 555.
(iii) Ahmad v. Ram Chander reported in AIR 1987 Allahabad 333.
(iv) Commissioner of Income-Tax, Patiala-1 v. Dev Raj reported in 98 ITR 76:
(v) P.V. Devassy v. Commissioner of Income-Tax reported in 84 ITR 502.
(vi) Motilal Padampat Sugar Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. reported in 118 ITR 326.
18. We now propose to deal with those decisions cited by Mr. Dutt.
19. In the case of Hindustan Steel Limited v. State of Orissa (supra), the Supreme Court was considering a case where an order of penalty was imposed for failure to carry out a statutory obligation. According to the Apex Court, such an order is the result of a quasi-criminal proceeding and the penalty should not be ordinarily imposed unless the party obliged either acted deliberately in defiance of law or was guilty of conduct which was contumacious or dishonest or acted in conscious disregard of its obligation. According to the Apex Court, penalty should not also be imposed merely because it is lawful to do so. Whether penalty should be imposed for failure to perform a statutory obligation is a matter, according to the Supreme Court, of discretion of the authority to be exercised judicially and on consideration of all relevant circumstances and even if a minimum penalty is prescribed, the authority competent to impose such penalty should be justified in refusing to impose penalty when there is a technical or venial breach of the provisions of the Act or where the breach flows from a bona fide belief that the offender was not liable to act in the manner prescribed by the statute.
20. In the case before us, the question is when the Government has taken a policy-decision not to entertain any application for fresh licence by fixing a particular date, whether mere ignorance of the writ petitioners can be a ground for disregarding such crucial date. In our view, the principle laid down in the aforesaid Supreme Court decision has no application to the fact in our cases and as such, the said cut-off date cannot be bypassed merely because the petitioners was not aware of such date.
21. In the case of C.I.T. v. Biju Patnaik (supra), the question before the Orissa High Court was whether penalty should be imposed in terms of Section 271(1)(A) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 when there was no material to prove deliberate concealment. It appeared from the materials placed before the Court that the assessee’s house-property in Delhi had not been occupied as he was residing in Bhubaneshwar being the Chief Minister of the State of Orissa and at the same time, no rental income had been derived from the house and the assessee did not know that the notional income had to be shown in his return. In such a fact, the Division Bench was of the view that the assessee had no mala fide intention in doing so and as such, the penalty should not be imposed. We fail to find how the principle laid down in the said decision can have any application to the fact of our case where the applications were filed long after the last date and at the same time on merit also the concerned authority found that those deserved rejection.
22. In the case of Ahmad v. Ram Chander (supra), the Allahabad High Court was considering whetner in the facts of the said case, the plaintiff should be entitled to the benefit of Section 14 of the Limitation Act by exclusion of the period during which he erroneously proceeded in another forum where the plaint was ultimately returned. The Court came to the conclusion that ignorance of law in that case afforded a good ground for invoking the benefit of Section 14 of the Limitation Act.
23. There is no dispute with the proposition of law that if a plaintiff was prosecuting with due diligence and in good faith at a forum which ultimately could not grant relief for want of jurisdiction or for other ground of like nature, such period should be excluded; but the said principle cannot have any application to the fact of the present case where the petitioners were trying to get a benefit which is prohibited under law in view of delayed filing of the application and they had also lost on merit.
24. In the case of Commissioner of Income-Tax, Patiala-1 v. Dev Raj (supra), an assessee’s profit and loss accounts disclosed items like income-tax, wealth tax, household expenses etc. but those were not included in his return of total income, as a result-, the Income-tax Officer initiated penalty proceedings under Section 271(1)(c) of the Income-tax Act. The Appellate Tribunal took the view that there was inadvertent mistake but there was no wilful default as those items were shown in the profit and loss account and thus, deleted the penalty. In such a case, the High Court was of the opinion that the items like income-tax and wealth tax were of such nature that the assessee might have been ignorant that those items were not deductible and therefore, did not interfere with the order of the Tribunal. In our view, the principles laid down in the said case cannot have any application to the facts of the present cases where for ignorance of the petitioners about the last date of submission of the application, they cannot be given the benefit of consideration of their application when the concerned officer is bound to follow the policy of the Government fixing the last date of entertaining the application.
25. In the case of P.V. Devassy v. Commissioner of Income-Tax (supra), the Kerala High Court came to the conclusion that mere failure to file return under Income-tax Act, 1961 within the time would not make the assessee liable to penalty and the department must prove that the assessee had no reasonable cause for rot filing it within the time. According to the Division Bench, if the assessee bona fide thought that he was required to file the return only after the firm had been granted registration and that in effect being the finding of the Tribunal, the imposition of the penalty was not warranted for the mere failure to furnish the return within the time in the absence of any proof that the assessee acted deliberately in defiance of law. For the reasons stated above, the said decision cannot have any application to the fact of the present case.
26. In the case of Motilal Padampat Sugar Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. (supra), the Supreme Court held that the doctrine of promissory estoppel cannot be applied in the teeth of an obligation or liability imposed by law and cannot be invoked to compel the Government or even the private party to do an act prohibited by law. The Supreme Court further held that there is no presumption that every person knows the law; even it is often said that everyone is presumed to know the law, the Apex Court proceeded, but that is not correct statement. There is no dispute with those propositions of law but law is equally settled that merely because a person did not know the correct law, he should be given a benefit even though such benefit has become time-barred and there is no provision for relaxation of the delay.
27. The decisions cited by Mr. Dutt, therefore, are of no avail to his clients.
28. All the points taken by Mr. Dutt having failed, we find no merit in these appeals and those are, accordingly, dismissed. In the facts and circumstances, there will be, however, no order as to costs.