Case Law Details
Akay Flavours and Aromatics Pvt. Ltd. Vs Asst. Commissioner (Kerala High Court)
The issue under consideration is whether additional court fees of 1% of the amount involved in the dispute leviable before filing of the appeals under GST Act is justified in law?
The aforementioned rule do not contemplate remittance of any additional court fees or other fees and thus the objection of the authorities in not entertaining the appeals being not accompanied by 1% additional fee is wholly falacious and arbitrary, though the additional fee in this case would be only a sum of Rs. 36,981/-. The notification Ext.P2 is not based on intelligible differentia or any reasonable classification.
It amounts to hostile discrimination in making a choice based on jurisdiction of the registration which is solely outside the domain and control of the assessee The fundamental objectives of GST are ‘one nation one tax’ by way of simplification of the tax process and by bringing uniformity in tax rates and the process throughout the nation. The levy of additional court fee at the flat rate of 1% on the disputed amount in appeal is disproportionately high as it partakes the character of tax.
Article 304A and 304B of the Constitution of India empower the State to impose tax by putting a certain reasonable restriction which should not be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. In view of what has been noticed above, the notification cannot be seen to be in violation of Article 14 or suffering from the character of tax. The writ petition is dismissed.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
section 3(ii) KCF Act defines court. ‘court’ means any civil, revenue or criminal court and includes a tribunal or other authority having jurisdiction under any special or local law to decide “questions affecting rights of parties”. can it be validly said that disputing the tax assessed is a question ‘affecting the rights of parties’. section 3(ii) is discussed in cardamom marketing corpn vs state of kerala.