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TMI Blog1963 (10) TMI 25X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed in these three appeals which come before us by virtue of special leave under Art. 136 of the Constitution are somewhat out of the ordinary and raise for consideration whether the common order passed by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh rejecting applications to review an earlier order by that court, is correct on the facts which we shall state presently. The appellant--M/s Thungabhadra Industries Ltd. are' manufacturers of groundnut oil, part of which they convert for sale into hydrogenated oil while the rest is sold as ordinary oil. Under the Madras General Sales Tax Act, hereinafter referred to as the Act, which has application to the State of Andhra Pradesh, while in regard to groundnuts the tax is levied at the point of purchase, groundnut oil is taxed at the point of sale. The result of this feature naturally is that when a person purchases groundnut and converts the same into oil and sells the oil extracted he has to pay tax at both the points. Rules have been framed in order to alleviate what might be considered a hardship by reason of this double levy. Rule 5(k) of the Turnover Assessment Rules provides: "5. (k) in the case of a registered manufacturer of groundnut ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... es by their order dated February 21, 1956 granted the certificate. In view of the points arising in this appeal we consider it would be convenient to set out the text of this order: "This petition raises a question of general importance namely whether hydrogenated groundnut oil popularly known as Vanaspathi is ground-nut oil so as to enable the assessee to claim exemption under Rules 18(2) and 5(1) (g) of the Turnover and Assessment Rules framed by the Government in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 and sub rules 4 and 5 of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1939. The answer to the question arising in this matter turns upon whether the chief characteristics of groundnut oil remain the same in spite of the chemical processes it undergoes, It also involves the interpretation of the notifications issued by the Government of India under the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act and certain provisions of the Vegetable Oils Products Control Order. In these circumstances we think it a fit case for appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave is therefore granted." Thereafter the appeal was entertained in this Court and numbered as Civil Appeal 498 of 1958, was finally ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution; nor do we regard this as a fit case for appeal to the Supreme Court." The question that arises for consideration in these appeals is primarily whether this order dated September 4, 1959, is vitiated by error apparent on the face of the record. How that matter becomes relevant is because the appellant filed three applications for review of this order under O. XLVII r. 1 of the Civil Procedure Code specifying this as the ground for relief. These applications for review were filed on November 23, 1959, and apparently notice was issued to the respondent-State Government and the petition for review came on for hearing on January 6, 1961. 180 On that date the learned Judges dismissed the said applications and assigned the following as the reasons for their order: "The only ground argued in support of these review petitions is that leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was granted in similar circumstances in regard to previous year and there was no reason why leave should have been refused in these cases. We do not think that would furnish a sufficient ground for reviewing the order dismissing the petitions for ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... does it make any prayer seeking such relief. One of the objects which the statement of the case is designed to achieve is manifestly that no party shall be taken by surprise at the hearing and this is ensured by the provision in O. XIX r. 4 of the Supreme Court Rules reading: "No party shall, without the leave of the Court, rely at the hearing on any grounds not specified in the Statement of the Case filed by him." Nor, of course, was there any contention that the ground that he proposed to submit came into existence after the filing of the statement of case. It was in these circumstances that we declined to permit the respondent to develop an argument to persuade us to hold that the leave granted by this Court should be revoked, though we might add that the matter mentioned by learned Counsel for the respondent in this respect would not, even if urged at the hearing of the special leave petition, have materially assisted him in resisting the grant of special leave. The point he desired to urge was that in the petition for special leave the appellant had averred that the decision of this Court reversing the judgment of the High Court in T.R.C. 120 of 1953 had been b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rescribed by the Rules. An application was therefore filed along with the special leave petitions seeking condonation of delay in the filing of the petitions. The petitions and the applications for condonation of delay came on together for hearing and this Court refused to condone the delay, so that the petitions for special leave never legally came on the file of this Court. O. XLVII r. 1(1) of the Civil Procedure Code permits an application for review being filed "from a decree or order from which an appeal is allowed but from which no appeal has been preferred." In the present case, it would be seen, on the date when the application for review was filed the appellant had not filed an appeal to this Court and therefore the terms of O. XLVII r. 1(1) did not stand in the way of the petition for review being entertained. Learned Counsel for the respondent did not contest this position. Nor could we read the judgment of the High Court as rejecting the petition for review on that ground. The crucial date for determining whether or not the 'terms of O. XLVII. r.1 (1) are satisfied is the date when the application for review is filed. If on that date no appeal has been filed it is com ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... where alone--as distinct from Art. 132--there is reference to a judgment of affirmance, though per incuriam they reproduced the terms of Art. 132(1). As it was the case of no party that any question of interpretation of the Constitution was involved, the reference to "the substantial question of law relating to the interpretation of the Constitution" must obviously have been a mistake for a substantial question of law arising in the appeal. Though learned Counsel for the appellant stressed this ground in the order of September, 1959 as itself disclosing an error apparent on the face of the record or was at least, ,indicative that the learned Judges did not apply their minds to the consideration of the question arising in the application for a certificate of fitness, we shall proceed on the basis that this was merely a clerical error in their order and that the learned Judges had really in mind the terms of Art. 133(1) which had been invoked by the appellants in their application for the certificate. On the basis that the words in the order of September, 1959 referring to a substantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution were really meant to say that no subs ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ealing with this difference exhaustively or in any great detail, but it would suffice for us to say that where without any elaborate argument one could point to the error and say here is a substantial point of law which stares one in the face, and there could reasonably be no two opinions entertained about it, a clear case of error apparent on the face of the record would be made out. No questions of fact were involved in the decision of the High Court in T.R.Cs. 75 to 77 of 1956. The entire controversy turned on the proper interpretation of r. 18(1) of the turnover Assessment Rules and the other pieces of legislation which are referred to by the High Court in its order of February 1956 nor could it be doubted or disputed that these were substantial questions of law. In the circumstances therefore, the submission of the appellant that the order of September 1959 was vitiated by "error apparent'' of the kind envisaged by O. XLVII r. 1, Civil Procedure Code when it stated that "no substantial question of law arose" appears to us to be clearly well-founded. Indeed, learned Counsel for the respondent did not seek to argue that the earlier order of September 1959 was not vitiated by s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... being of the same Court and of a Bench composed in part of the same Judges, the earlier order was referred to as a convenient summary of the various points of law that arose for the purpose of bringing to the notice of the Court the error which it committed in stating that no substantial question of law arose in the appeals. If by the first sentence the learned Judges meant that the contention which they were called upon to consider was directed to claim the previous order of 1956 as a binding precedent, they failed to appreciate the substance of the appellant's argument. If, however, they meant that the matters set out by them in their order granting a certificate in relation to their decision in T.R.C. 120 of 1953 were not also involved in their judgment in T.R.Cs. 75 to 77 they were in error, for it is the case of no one that the questions of law involved were not identical. If, besides, they meant to say that these were not substantial questions of law within Art. 133(1), they were again guilty of error. The reasoning, therefore, of the learned Judges in the order now under appeal, is no ground for rejecting the applications to review their orders of September, 1959. We therefo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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