Amendments to appeal filings under tax laws date back to the original filing date, allowing for consideration despite delays.

1. The Income - tax Appellate Tribunal has referred the following three questions of law for opinion to this Court.
"1. Whether the filing of the memorandum of appeal on the prescribed form and in triplicate is mandatory or is mere matter of procedure not affecting limitation ?
2. Whether on the facts and circumstances of this case, the appeal to the Tribunal was barred by limitation ?
3. Whether the admission of the revised memo, of appeal ex parte after the period of limitation under R. 13 of the Tribunal Rules amounted to condonation of the delay and such order is not liable to be challenged by the Department at the time of the hearing of the appeal ?"
The facts, as they appear from the statement of the case, are that an appeal by the assessee was dismissed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner by his order dated the 7th of May, 1949, and the copy of that appellate order was served on the assessee on the 11th of May, 1949. A memo of appeal against that order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner was presented to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal on the 6th of July, 1949, but it was found to be defective inasmuch as the memo of appeal was not in the prescribed form and it was not filed in triplicate as required by R. 10 of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal Rules.
These defects were pointed out to the assessee at the time of presentation of the appeal and consequently, they were rectified by the assessee by filing a revised memo of appeal in triplicate in proper form on the 22nd of July, 1949. At this time the new forms presented were accompanied by an application praying for admission of the appeal. The Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal on the application passed an order, 'Admit'.
Thereafter, the appeal came before us for that hearing when an objection was raised by the Income Tax Department that the appeal was barred by time. This plea of the department was accepted by the Tribunal which also held that there was no sufficient cause for condoning the delay. Thereupon the appeal was dismissed. It is on these facts that the three questions, mentioned above, have been referred to this Court for opinion.

2. In this case, we propose to take up question No. 2 first because, on the view, that we are taking on this question, it may not be necessary to answer questions Nos. 1 and 3 as they will not arise in case the second question is answered in favour of the assessee. On the facts mentioned above, it is clear that the memo of appeal was first presented within time on the 6th of July, 1949, as the period of 60 days started running with effect from the 12th of May, 1949. The memo of appeal having been presented, it had to be examined to see whether it was in order and it was discovered that there were two defects : First the memo of appeal was not in the prescribed form and, secondly it was not accompanied by two other copies, so that there was non - compliance with the provisions of R. 10 of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal Rules. Under R. 13 of those rules, the Tribunal could proceed in two alternative ways. Either the Tribunal could reject the memo of appeal or the Tribunal could return it for being amended within such time as it might have allowed. In the latter case, the memo of appeal, after amendment, could be re - presented, whereupon, according to R. 13, it would have been signed and dated by the officer authorised in this behalf by the Tribunal.
In the present case, the Tribunal did not adopt either of these courses laid down in R. 13. The Tribunal did not choose to reject the memo of appeal, nor did it proceed to return the memo of appeal for being amended after prescribing the time during which it might be re - presented after amendment. What the Tribunal did was to keep that memo of appeal pending and, therea