Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
R.S. Pathak, C.J. and Ranganath Misra

JUDGMENT

Ranganath Misra, J.

1. The fate of this appeal under Section 35(L) of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, depends upon the meaning and scope of the Explanation appearing in Section 11A of the Act.

2. The High Court of Karnataka by its order dated 4.6.1976 in Writ Petition No. 2632 of 1976 gave the following direction:

It is further ordered that the petitioner shall however continue to pay exercise duty as yarn and shall further maintain an account in square metres for future clearance.

The said Writ Petition was ultimately dismissed by the High Court on 16.2.1981. The operative part of the Court's final order ran thus:

For the reasons aforesaid, we make the following order:-

(i) Rule discharged;

(ii) We decline to interfere at this stage leaving open to the petitioner to urge all the contentions in reply to the show cause notices.

3. On 20th May, 1982, a notice to show cause was issued to the appellant by the Assistant Collector, being Notice No. 913, and with this the Collector sought to raise a demand for the period from 20th June, 1976 to 28th February, 1981 apart from for the period between 1.4.1975 to 18.8.1975 in respect of which an earlier show cause notice dated 29.1.1976 had already been issued.

4. It is not disputed by the Revenue that the appropriate period of limitation to apply to the facts of the case is six months as provided in Section 11A of the Act and that the Notice issued on 20th of May, 1982 was beyond that period. Reliance was placed on the Explanation for obtaining extension of that period. The Explanation reads thus:

Where the service of the notice is stayed by an order of a Court, the period of such stay shall be excluded in computing the aforesaid period of six months or five years, as the case may be.

The provision in the Explanation incorporates a well-known principle of law. Section 15 of the Limitation Act of 1908 (also of Section 15 of the Limitation Act of 1963) incorporates the same principle. This Court in Sirajul Haq Khan and Ors. v. The Sunni Central Board of Waqf, U.P. and Ors. MANU/SC/0138/1958 : [1959]1SCR1287 dealt with the effect of an order of injection in the matter of computation of limitation. At page 1302 of the Reports, Gajendragadkar, J. as he then was, spoke for the Court thus.