The main legal point established is the need for a liberal interpretation of the 'sufficient cause' provision in Section 35 of the Central Excise Act to ensure substantial justice and prevent meritorious matters from being dismissed on technical grounds.

( 1 ) HEARD Sri Bharat Ji Agrawal along with Sri Pankaj Bhatia, learned Counsel for the petitioners and Sri Subodh Kumar, learned Counsel for the respondents.

( 2 ) BRIEF facts necessary for adjudication of the present writ petition are that the petitioner is a company duly registered under the Companies Act and engaged in the manufacturing of soft drinks falling under Chapter XXII of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985. The respondent No. 2 i. e. Additional Commissioner (Central Excise) issued a notice on 2-6-1999 demanding excise duty along with interest and mandatory penalty and intended to levy a penalty under Rule 209a of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 on the petitioners nos. 2, 3 and 4. After hearing the petitioners, the respondent No. 2 passed an order on 26-12-2001 thereby imposing duty of Rs. 14,02,900/along with interest as provided under Section 11ab of the Central Excise Act in short called act 1944 and further penalty amounting to Rs. 14,02,900/- purported to be under Section 11ac of the act read with Rule 173q of the said Rules.

( 3 ) BEING aggrieved against the above order, the petitioners preferred an appeal Under Section 35 of the act along with an application Under Section 35f of the act and also an application for condonation of delay. It appears that the order was served on 3-1-2002 but as the petitioner No. 3 was undergoing medical treatment, therefore, he filed the appeal with delay of 99 days. The commissioner (Appeals) by its order dated 26-6-2002 dismissed the appeal as time barred Under section 35 (G) of the act saying that the Commissioner is empowered to condone the delay of 35 days only under Section 35 of act and the appeal since have been filed by delay of 99 days therefore, he has no power to condone the delay, therefore, the dismissal of appeal.

( 4 ) FOR convenience the Section 35 of Central Excise Act, 1944 reads as below: section 35. Appeals to (Commissioner (Appeals)) (1) Any person aggrieved by any decision or order passed under this Act by a Central Excise Officer, Lower in rank than a (Commissioner of central Excise) may appeal to the (Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals)) (hereinafter in this Chapter referred to as the (Commissioner (Appeals)) (within sixty days) from the date of the communication to him of such decision or order : (Provided that the Commissioner (Appeals) may, if he is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from presenting the appeal within the aforesaid period of sixty days, allow it to be presented within a further period of thirty days.) (2) Every appeal under this section shall be in the prescribed form and shall be verified in the prescribed manner.

( 5 ) IT has been argued on behalf of the learned Counsel for the petitioner that his clients were not aware with the provisions of Section 35, moreover, due to the circumstances beyond the control of his clients, their counsels having fallen ill for considerable length of time, therefore, appeal could not be filed. In this connection counsel for the petitioner relied on a decision of Delhi High court in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 3650 of 1995 (Eureka Forbes Ltd. v. Union of India and others) which under the similar circumstances held that the delay should have been condoned by the authorities and the authorities should have heard the matter on merits. The said decision refers to a Supreme Court decision in 1987 (28) E. L. T. 185 (S. C.) and AIR 1987 SC 1353 (Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag and Anr. v. Mst. Katiji and Ors. has held as follows : "the expression sufficient cause employed by the legislature in Section 5 of the Indian limitation Act, 1963 was held to be adequately elastic to enable the courts to apply the law in a meaningful manner which subserves the ends of justice that being the life purpose for the existence of the institution of the Courts. The principles which a court is expected to apply for adopting a liberal approach were summarised as follows :