Kanunga Extrusion Private Limited Vs Assistant Commissioner (ST) (Madras High Court)
Writ not maintainable as Alternative Remedy available for examining records, facts and mis-match
Conclusion: In present facts of the case, the Hon’ble High Court dismissed the writ petitions by observing that question of looking into the records, going into the facts and examining mismatch, this exercise can be done by the Appellate Authority only. Therefore, petitions shall avail alternative remedy.
Facts: In present facts of the case the six main writ petitions were filed before the Hon’ble High Court, assailing six separate revisional/re-assessment orders under Section 27 of TN VAT Act.
The respondent had made revisional/re-assessment orders earlier, the same were called in question/assailed by the writ petitioner by way of six writ petitions in this Court and all these six writ petitions together with writ miscellaneous petition came to be disposed of by a Hon’ble Single Judge in and by a common order dated 15.03.2018. In brief, the facts were that this is a case of mismatch and if the dealer at the far end had not paid the tax, the writ petitioner cannot be penalized for the same. According to learned counsel for writ petitioner, the impugned orders are not in accordance with directions given by this Court in the aforementioned previous common order.
The Revenue submitted that the respondent has in fact given an opportunity of personal hearing to writ petitioners but writ petitioner-dealer had failed to even submit a reply. If reply had been filed by the dealer and if the dealer had responded to 11.02.2021 personal hearing notice (issued pursuant to aforementioned earlier common order of this Court), the respondent would have got an opportunity to examine the same, but not having done that, the dealer/writ petitioner has now embarked upon second round of litigation to avoid pre-deposit qua alternate remedy. Learned Revenue counsel pointed out that the writ petitioner has appeal remedy by way of statutory Appeal under Section 51 of TNVAT Act.
After taking submissions of both sides into consideration, the Hon’ble High Court dismissed the writ petitions and held that this case does not fall under any of the aforementioned exceptions as laid down by various Judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court. The question of looking into the records, going into the facts and examining mismatch, this exercise can be done by the Appellate Authority. This is more so as the Appellate Authority can well go into facts. Therefore, this was not considered to be a case for exercising writ jurisdiction for interference qua impugned orders. Therefore, the campaign against impugned orders in writ jurisdiction in the captioned main writ petitions fail. However, it was made clear that it is open to the writ petitioner to avail alternate remedy under Section 51 of TNVAT Act, if the writ petitioner chooses to do so, subject to limitation and pre-deposit conditions set out therein, i.e., if the writ petitioner satisfies these conditions and takes alternate remedy route i.e., statutory appeal, the Appellate Authority shall deal with the appeals on its own merits and in accordance with law, uninfluenced by any of the observations made in this order.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF MADRAS HIGH COURT
Captioned six main writ petitions have been filed assailing six separate revisional/re-assessment orders under Section 27 of ‘Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 (Tamil Nadu Act No.32 of 2006)’ [hereinafter ‘TNVAT’ for the sake of convenience and clarity]. All these six orders are dated 21.04.2021, but they pertain to six different assessment years with different reference numbers. The details are as follows:
