Sunil Kumar Agrawal Vs State of Chhattisgarh (Chhattisgarh High Court)
Conclusion: Once the Division Bench had remitted the matter without entertaining the plea of alternative remedy, learned Single Judge was not justified in dismissing writ petitions on that ground again; matter remitted for decision on merits.
Held: In the instant case, the decision was rendered by Chhattisgarh High Court while adjudicating a batch of writ appeals led by a case filed by M/s Sunil Kumar Agrawal. The facts of the present case follows the assessing authority’s deletion of the words “High Speed Diesel for Mining Machinery” from assessee’s registration certificate. Assessing Authority then issued a notice under Section 49(1) of the CGVAT Act read with Section 9(2) of the CST Act and passed an order deleting the insertion from the appellant’s registration certificate. The writ petitions challenging these orders were initially allowed by a Single Judge on 18 October 2022, who set aside the deletion of the words and rejected the argument of alternative remedy. However, the State preferred appeals before the Division Bench who allowed the State’s appeals and remitted the matters to the Single Judge for fresh adjudication in accordance with law, without sustaining the plea of alternative remedy. On remand, Single Judge dismissed the petitions holding that assessees had an efficacious statutory alternative remedy, again leading to the present batch of appeals before the Division Bench. Assessee argued that the Division Bench, in its earlier order had conclusively dealt with the issue of alternative remedy and remitted the case only for adjudication on merits. It was further submitted that the Single Judge erred in reintroducing the question of maintainability, which had already attained finality. It was held that once the Division Bench remitted the matter without entertaining the plea of alternative remedy, and the earlier rejection of that plea had attained finality, Single Judge was not justified in dismissing the petitions afresh on that ground. Moreover, the case involved a substantial legal question on interpretation of “in mining” under Section 8(3)(b) of the CST Act, which could be adjudicated without factual inquiry. Accordingly, the impugned order was set aside, and the matter remitted to the learned Single Judge for decision on merits.
