THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION No. 29140 OF 2011 DATED:24-11-2011 Between: The Commissioner of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax, Guntur. … Petitioner And The Joint Secretary, (The Revision Authority) Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Department Of Revenue, New Delhi and others. … Respondents THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION No. 29140 OF 2011 ORDER: (per the Hon’ble the Chief Justice Shri Madan B. Lokur) 1. The petitioner is aggrieved by an order dated 15.9.2010 passed by the Government of India, Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) in respect of a revision application ﬁled by the Commissioner of Central Excise, Guntur. 2. It is not necessary for us to go into the merits of the case except to notice that the challenge before the Government was to an Order in Appeal dated 28.12.2007 passed by the Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise (Appeals), Guntur. Ordinarily, under Section 129-DD of the Customs Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act’), a revision petition could have been ﬁled before the Government within a period of three months. However, instead of doing so, the Revenue preferred an appeal before the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (for short ‘the CESTAT). The appeal came to be rejected by the Tribunal on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal because of the provisions of Section 129-A of the Act. The decision of the Tribunal is dated 2.7.2008. 3. Upon receipt of the order passed by the Tribunal, the Revenue preferred a revision petition before the Government on 8.8.2008. 4. When the matter was taken up for consideration by the Government, an objection was raised that the revision application is barred by time. Reliance in this regard was placed upon Section 129-DD(2) of the Act. The relevant provision is reproduced below: (2)An application under sub-section (1) shall be made within three months from the date of the communication to the applicant of the order against which the application is being made. Provided that the Central Government may, if it is satisﬁed that the applicant was prevented by suﬃcient cause from presenting the application within the aforesaid period of three months, allow it to be presented within a future period of three months.” 5. While dismissing the revision application as barred by time, the Government referred to and relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Union of India vs. Kirloskar Pneumatics Company Ltd.,[1] to the eﬀect that even the High Court in its writ jurisdiction cannot direct the Customs authorities to ignore the statutory time limit. The Government also relied upon a decision of the Madras High Court in A.D. Jeyaveerpandia Nadar & Bors. Chennai v. Government of India in Writ Petition No. 1443 of 2005 and decided on 30.11.2009. 6. We have heard learned counsel for the petitioner, who submitted that the Revenue had bona ﬁde approached the CESTAT and that the period spent before the Tribunal ought to be excluded for the purpose of counting the period of limitation for filing an appeal. 7. We ﬁnd that the provisions of the Limitation Act or the principles laid down therein are not applicable to the Customs Act. Therefore, the principle that where a party bona ﬁde pursues a remedy before the wrong forum, the period spent in pursuing the remedy ought to be excluded is not applicable to the Customs Act. 8. Under the circumstances, we ﬁnd no reason to disagree with the view taken by the Government that the revision was barred by time and that the time spent by the petitioner in pursuing the remedy before the CESTAT, which was not the correct forum, cannot be availed of in calculating the period of time available for ﬁling the revision petition. 9. There is no merit in this writ petition and it is accordingly dismissed. 10. The interim applications are also dismissed. MADAN B. LOKUR, CJ SANJAY KUMAR, J 24-11-2011 pnb [1] 1996(84) ELT 401 (SC)