VOS Technologies India Pvt Ltd Vs Principal Additional Director General & Anr. (Delhi High Court)

Delhi High Court held that adjudication proceedings under Customs Act, 1962; the Finance Act, 1994 and Central Goods and Services Tax, 2017 cannot be kept pending for years and decades together.Facts- This batch of writ petitions seek the quashing of the Show Cause Notices and pending adjudication proceedings arising out of the Customs Act, 1962, the Finance Act, 1994 and the Central Goods and Services Tax, 2017. The principal ground of attack is the inordinate delay in the finalisation of the adjudication proceedings with the writ petitioners contending that the failure on the part of the respondents to conclude adjudication within a reasonable period of time and inordinately delaying the same for decades together would constitute a sufficient ground to annul those proceedings. They would contend that the principles of a ‘reasonable period’ which courts have propounded in connection with an adjudicatory function conferred upon an authority would apply and the impugned SCNs’ and orders are liable to be quashed on this short score alone.Conclusion- Held that the respondents are bound and obliged in law to endeavour to conclude adjudication with due expedition. Matters which have the potential of casting financial liabilities or penal consequences cannot be kept pending for years and decades together. A statute enabling an authority to conclude proceedings within a stipulated period of time “where it is possible to do so” cannot be countenanced as a license to keep matters unresolved for years. The flexibility which the statute confers is not liable to be construed as sanctioning lethargy or indolence. Ultimately it is incumbent upon the authority to establish that it was genuinely hindered and impeded in resolving the dispute with reasonable speed and dispatch. A statutory authority when faced with such a challenge would be obligated to prove that it was either impracticable to proceed or it was constricted by factors beyond its control which prevented it from moving with reasonable expedition. This principle would apply equally to cases falling either under the Customs Act, the 1994 Act or the CGST Act.