Case Law Details
Rajeev Nohwar Vs Chief Controlling Revenue Authority Maharashtra State, Pune and Others (Supreme Court of India)
As a general rule of law, the right to refund is a statutory creation. A refund can be sought in terms envisaged by statute. As discussed above, the case of the appellant is not specifically barred by any substantive provision. It is an established principle that this Court while exercising its power under Article 142 of Constitution must not ignore and override statutory provisions but must rather take note of the express statutory provisions and exercise its discretion with caution.3 Therefore, if a statute prescribes a limitation period, this Court must be slow to interfere with the delay under Article 142.
However, in the case of an eventuality such as the instant case where the facts of the case are not covered by the statute, this Court under Article 142 will have the power to do complete justice by condoning the delay. We are of the view that since the delay in filling the application for refund in the instant case was due to the prolonged proceedings before the NCDRC, the application cannot be rejected on the ground of delay. A litigant has no control over judicial delays. A rejection of the application for refund would violate equity, justice and fairness where the applicant is made to suffer the brunt of judicial delay. Therefore, this is a fit case for the exercise of the power under Article 142 of the Constitution.
For the above reasons, we allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment and order of the learned Single Judge of the Bombay High Court dated 22 November 2018. As a consequence, we direct that the appellant would be entitled to a refund of the stamp duty which was paid at the time of the purchase of the e-stamp paper, conditional on the appellant returning the e-stamp paper to the Collector of Stamps, Mumbai. The refund shall be processed within a period of one month of the delivery of the e-stamp paper to the Collector. The appellant would be entitled to interest at the rate of 6% per annum from 16 July 2016 until the date of refund. In the circumstances of the case, there shall be no order as to costs.
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