9911796707
TMI Blog2006 (11) TMI 555X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ssa Sales Tax Act, 1947. Apart from that the petitioner is also a registered pioneer large scale industry under the Directorate of Industries and has availed the sales tax exemption as per the IPR, 1989. The Sales Tax Officer, Sambalpur III Circle, Jharsuguda, passed an order of assessment under the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 and the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 on December 30, 1996 for the year 1994-95. Challenging the said order of assessment, the petitioner filed a writ petition being O.J.C. No.2435 of 1997 with a prayer for quashing the said order of assessment dated December 30, 1996 for the year 1994-95. In the said petition a prayer was also made for a direction to the State of Orissa to issue a notification for exempting the goods manufactured by the petitioner-company as a large scale industry in terms of the provisions of IPR, 1989. In the said writ petition, the petitioner also filed a Miscellaneous Case bearing No.1960 of 1997 with a prayer for stay of further proceeding in terms of the impugned order of assessment and a prayer was also made for restraining the Sales Tax Officer from proceeding for further assessment for subsequent year and also for grant of full ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 00. Such application was made on May 13, 2000. The petitioner also filed an application on June 16, 2000 before the Sales Tax Officer claiming interest on his deposit, i.e., from the date of the deposit as per the order of the honourable court. The said prayer for interest was rejected by the Sales Tax Officer by an order dated June 21, 2001, inter alia, on the ground that the refund which was granted to the petitioner does not arise out of the order of the High Court, but from the order of the first appellate authority. The writ petition did not succeed before the High Court and, therefore, interest cannot be granted in view of the interim order which was passed in a proceeding which was ultimately decided against the petitioner. It has also been stated that refund was granted pursuant to section 14 of the OST Act and the said refund having been granted within a period of 90 days, no interest can be granted to the petitioner. Similar order has been passed on the petitioner's prayer for grant of interest in the CST proceeding. This court finds that the order passed by the authority refusing the petitioner's prayer for grant of interest is based on sound reasons. It ap ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... osed of. The assessee succeeded in the second appeal and consequently the amount which was deposited by the assessee pursuant to the order of the High Court became liable to be paid by the Revenue to the assessee. The assessee filed an application claiming such refund. At that stage the Revenue denied the appellant the benefit of interest granted by the High Court. Aggrieved by such denial of the Revenue, the assessee approached the High Court with a writ petition and the High Court according to the honourable Supreme Court took a very narrow view of the matter and held that the assessee is only entitled to an interest that was permissible under section 14 of the OST Act. In the background of these facts, the honourable Supreme Court held that the direction given by the High Court to deposit the amount was given in exercise of High Court's jurisdiction under articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India and such deposit would be governed by the conditions imposed in the High Court's order directing such deposit. As such the claim for interest of the petitioner in such a case will not be governed by the provisions of section 14 of the OST Act. As such the Supreme ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Act, 1954. It appears that under section 22B of the said Act, a staff car is to be provided to the High Court Judge and there was failure on the part of Bihar to provide such car. Payment to the Judge on that account and payment under the Death-cum-Retirement Gratuity was allowed but was delayed by a year as a result of which the learned Judge claimed interest on the balance amount at 12 per cent and the same was rightly allowed by the High Court. In granting the said claim, the Supreme Court observed that once it is established that an amount legally due to a party was not paid to it, the party responsible for withholding the same must pay interest at a rate considered reasonable by the court. Reliance was sought to be placed on the said observation by the honourable Supreme Court but the said observations cannot be taken de hors the context in which they are made. Apart from that, in the instant case, the direction to refund with interest to the petitioner was conditioned on the success of the writ petition, but the writ petitioner had not succeeded. Therefore, the petitioner is not entitled to get any interest in terms of the interim order since the very term of grant of such in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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