9911796707
TMI Blog2010 (2) TMI 1074X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... though marginally vary figuratively for the different assessment years, are otherwise identical and having carried the same challenge, the petitions were analogously heard. I have heard Mr. G.K. Joshi, senior advocate assisted by Mr. R.K. Joshi, advocate for the petitioner and Mr. D. Saikia, learned standing counsel, Revenue for the respondents. A synoptic citation of the pleaded averments of the petitioner in absence of a counter by the respondents is indispensible to provide the factual backdrop. The petitioner has presented itself to be a public limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 engaged in the execution of contract works of various nature under the State of Assam as well as the Central Government besides being in the business of purchase and sale of plants and machineries of engineering and electrical goods within the State and beyond. It is a registered dealer under the Assam General Sales Tax Act, 1993, Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003 and the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 and has been paying its dues thereunder to the concerned authorities. As required, it submitted its monthly turnovers with the particulars of tax paid on the basis thereof ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... puted tax and interest as a precondition for the admission of the appeals. Being still aggrieved, the petitioner filed two revision petitions before the Commissioner of Taxes, Assam, Guwahati on July 1, 2009 also with petitions for stay of the operation of the order dated May 11, 2009 requiring the interim deposit as above. In course of the hearing that followed, though it was, inter alia, urged on behalf of the petitioner before the revisional authority that the insistence for deposit of 25 per cent of the disputed tax and interest which work out to a massive amount of Rs. 2,02,91,859 has the potential of causing undue hardship to it, besides pleading the untenability of the disputed demand in law as a whole, by the order impugned herein, the revision petitions were rejected. These petitions have been heard at the motion stage in course of which the relevant official records have been produced on behalf of the respondents. No affidavit-in-opposition by them, however, has been filed. Mr. Joshi has persuasively urged that having regard to the scheme of Chapter IX of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (for short, hereafter referred to as, the Act ), the impugned order bein ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on 82(2A) to relax the essential precondition of the deposit to proceed thereunder can by no means be construed to be extendable to the one statutorily prescribed qua, the appeal. In other words, he sought to contend that the revisional authority though empowered in the cited eventualities under section 82(2A) to relax the requirement of deposit of 25 per cent of the disputed tax, etc., in entertaining the revision petition, no such prerogative was available to it to dispense with the stipulations embodied in section 79(5) of the Act. Mr. Saikia also countervailed the petitioner's pleading that the revision petition had not been disposed of on merits. The learned standing counsel pressed into service to buttress his arguments the following decisions: (1) Vijay Prakash D. Mehta v. Collector of Customs (Preventive), Bombay [1989] 72 STC 324 (SC). (2) State of Haryana v. Maruti Udyog Ltd. [2001] 124 STC 285 (SC); [2000] 7 SCC 348. (3) State of Tripura v. Manoranjan Chakraborty [2001] 122 STC 594 (SC); [2001] 10 SCC 740. I have bestowed my conscious consideration to the pleaded facts, the documents on record and the competing arguments advanced. No dissidence as such is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... recedent therefor. To mark the variance in the essential features of sections 79(5) and 82(2A) as would be warranted to answer the issues in hand, the same are extracted hereinbelow: Section 79(5) of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003: 79.. Appeals to the appellate authority. (1) to (4) . . . (5) No appeal by a person shall be entertained by an appellate authority unless such appeal is accompanied by satisfactory proof of payment of minimum twenty five per cent of the disputed tax, penalty, if any imposed and the interest accrued thereon, if any: Provided that such authority may stay the recovery of the full or part of the balance amount of tax, interest and penalty, till the disposal of the appeal. . . . Section 82 . . . (2A) An application by a dealer or person shall not be entertained by the Commissioner unless such application is accompanied by satisfactory proof of payment of minimum twenty five per cent of the disputed tax, penalty, if any, imposed and the interest accrued thereon, if any: Provided that the Commissioner may, if it thinks fit, for reasons to be recorded in writing and subject to furnishing of such security as Commissioner may deem fit ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... permitting relaxation of such statutory fiat, any interpretation to fritter away such enjoinment would be subversive of an otherwise inviolable feature of the enactment involved. Any interpretation by any court of law favouring such construction to moderate or annihilate such essentiality would amount to curial legislation impermissible in law. The revisional jurisdiction as couched in section 82 of the Act is eminently a discretionary one and cannot be expected to be exercised as a matter of course. The scope and expanse thereof which seemingly appear to be plenary in nature has been consciously bridled to conform to the other provisions of the Act. The power therefore by no means can be construed to be absolute in supersession of the other provisions of the statute intended to regulate the same. Any conferment of power antithetical to the otherwise obvious scheme of the legislation as construed cannot thus be envisaged and countenanced. In view of the unambiguous and imperious prescript of section 79(5) requiring the interim deposit of 25 per cent of the disputed tax, penalty if any and the interest accrued thereon without any scope whatsoever for the relaxation thereof, th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
