JUDGMENT

A.K.Jayasankaran Nambiar, J.

In as much as all these O.T. Revisions involve a common issue, they are taken up together for consideration and disposed by this common judgment.

2. The revision petitioner is stated to be a manufacturer and seller of granite metals. For the various assessment years involved in the instant revisions (2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2014-15), the assessment under the Kerala Value Added Tax Act were completed based on the option for the compounded scheme exercised by the petitioner. The assessing authority however, recomputed the compounded tax payable in terms of section 25A and passed an order demanding differential tax. The appeal preferred by the petitioner before the first Appellate Authority was dismissed and hence the petitioner preferred second appeal before the appellate Tribunal.

3. While the said appeals were pending before the Tribunal, the Government of Kerala announced an amnesty scheme for settlement of arrears and the petitioner opted for the benefit of the amnesty scheme in respect of all the assessment years aforementioned after withdrawing the appeals pending before the appellate Tribunal for the said assessment years. It is not in dispute that the applications for amnesty preferred by the petitioner for the various assessment years, were scrutinized and accepted by the department and the petitioner was duly intimated of the amounts that he was required to pay under the amnesty scheme for a complete settlement of the disputes pending with the department for the assessment years aforementioned. It would appear however, that the petitioner could not pay the settlement amounts intimated by the department and consequently, he stood to lose the benefit of the amnesty scheme, as well.

4. Faced with the predicament where he had already withdrawn the appeals pending before the appellate tribunal with a view to opting for the benefit of the amnesty scheme, and thereafter having lost the benefit of the amnesty scheme on account of non-compliance with the conditions for getting the benefit under that scheme, the petitioner decided to prefer fresh appeals against the orders of the First Appellate Authority that dismissed his appeal for various assessment years. The fresh appeals were filed along with delay condonation applications to cover the period from the date of receipt of the first appellate orders till the date of filing of the fresh appeals. When the applications for condonation of delay came up for hearing before the Tribunal, the Tribunal dismissed the applications as also the appeals on the finding that the appeals themselves were not maintainable and a condonation of delay was therefore not called for. It is aggrieved by the said orders of the appellate Tribunal that the petitioner is now before us seeking a direction to set aside the said orders of the appellate Tribunal and to direct the Tribunal to consider the appeals preferred by the petitioner on merits.

5. We heard Sri.Soman Pulladan, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner in all these revision petitions and have also heard Sri.V.K.Shamsudheen, the learned senior Government Pleader for the Taxes department of the State.

6. On a consideration of the rival submission and notwithstanding the fervent plea of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the directions prayed for in the revision petitions would only entail a hearing of the appeals preferred by the petitioner on merits, we find ourselves unable to accede to the said plea of the revision petitioner. As already noticed, the petitioner had of his own volition decided to opt for the amnesty scheme, the details of which were known to him well before he decided to withdraw the appeals pending before the Tribunal as a pre-condition for approaching the Government for the benefit of the amnesty scheme. That apart, after withdrawing the appeals pending before the Tribunal, he pursued his application under the amnesty scheme and the State Government accepted the sai