Harsha Devani, J.

1. Since the facts and contentions raised in both these petitions are similar and the parties are common, they were taken up for hearing together and are decided by this common judgment. For the sake of convenience, reference is made to the facts as appearing in Special Civil Application No. 9198 of 2016.

2. The petitioner, during the period July 2009 to January 2010, carried out re-packing of Muriate of Potash (MOP) on behalf of the exporters, who allegedly exported the said MOP to Malaysia. In July 2010, the officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) initiated investigation in respect of the issue of export of MOP. Pursuant thereto, a show cause notice dated 05.06.2013 came to be issued to the petitioner. It is the case of the petitioner that thereafter, the office of the third respondent - Additional Commissioner of Customs (Preventive), Jamnagar, issued hearing notice dated 08.08.2014 fixing the date of hearing on 19.08.2014, which was sent/received at the permanent address of the petitioner's parents at Rajkot. The petitioner who has been permanently based in Surat since 2005, on receipt of the notice from his parents, forwarded the same to his Ahmedabad based advocate. The learned advocate, due to short notice, could not act/represent in the matter before the adjudicating authority. Thereafter, another notice of hearing dated 15.09.2014 was once again served at the petitioner's parents' address at Rajkot on or about 22.09.2014, fixing the personal hearing on 25.09.2014. Once again, due to the short notice period of fixing the hearing dates, it was difficult for the petitioner to obtain the availability of the petitioner's advocate to appear before the third respondent, whose office is located at Jamnagar. The petitioner's advocate, however, vide letter dated 25.09.2014, filed a reply raising preliminary objections and requested for another date of hearing to submit the reply and attend the personal hearing. Thereafter, the petitioner filed final reply dated 07.10.2014, inter alia, requesting for personal hearing in the matter. It is the case of the petitioner that without granting opportunity of personal hearing in the matter and without properly considering or giving his findings on the written submissions made by the petitioner, the third respondent vide order-in-original dated 20.10.2014 imposed penalty of Rs. 3,00,000/- on the petitioner under section 114(i) of the Customs Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"). Being aggrieved, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the second respondent (Commissioner (Appeals)), along with an application for condonation of delay. Vide order-in-appeal dated 14.10.2015, the appeal came to be rejected on the ground of delay in filing the appeal beyond the condonable delay of thirty days provided under the proviso to section 128 of the Act. Being aggrieved, the petitioner has filed the present petitions challenging, both, the order-in-original dated 20.10.2014 as well as the order-in-appeal dated 14.10.2015.

3. Mr. Rahul Gajera, learned advocate for the petitioner, made three fold submissions challenging the impugned order-in-original. Firstly, that the order-in-original is bad in law on account of breach of the principles of natural justice, inasmuch as, the proviso to section 122A of the Act requires that three adjournments be granted to a party, whereas in the present case, after granting two adjournments, despite the fact that an opportunity of personal hearing was requested for, without considering such request and granting such opportunity, the order-in-original came to be made. According to the learned advocate for the petitioner, section 122A of the Act requires giving personal hearing after due adjudication process, that is, after filing of reply. That the petitioner having filed preliminary reply on 25.09.2014 and final reply on -7.10.2014, the third respondent was statutorily under an obligation to give an opportunity of h