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TMI Blog1961 (4) TMI 4X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... S JUDGMENT The judgment of the court was delivered by S. K. DAS J.- -These three appeals with special leave granted under article 136 of the Constitution have been heard together and this judgment will govern them all. They raise a common question as to the practice of this court, which we shall presently state. But before we do so, we must first set out the facts in so far as it is necessary to state them in order to appreciate the precise nature of the question that has arisen for consideration in these appeals. The relevant facts are these. The firm of Messrs. Durga Dutt Chandi Prasad, appellant in these appeals, carried on a business of dealing in several kinds of goods but mostly in raw jute at Sahebganj in Bihar. It was registered as a dealer under section 4 of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1944, with effect from July 1, 1946. For three periods, commencing from October 1, 1947, and ending on March 31, 1950, it was assessed to sales tax on its turnover of the relevant periods, which consisted inter alia of purchases alleged to have been made on behalf of two other jute mills outside Bihar, namely, the Raigarh Jute Mills and the Bengal Jute Mills, and also of despatches ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... namely, (1) whether the despatch of jute outside the State of Bihar was a sale within the meaning of the Act and (2) whether the purchases said to have been made on behalf of the two mills outside Bihar were liable to tax, were both concluded by findings of fact arrived at by the competent authorities on relevant materials in the record and were no longer open to challenge. The appellant then moved the High Court for requiring the Board to state a case on the questions of law which, according to the appellant, arose out of the orders passed with regard to the first two periods of Assessment. By an order dated November 17, 1954, the High Court dismissed the two applications made to it for requiring the Board to state a case to the High Court with regard to the said two periods. On a similar application made by the appellant to the High Court with regard to the third period of assessment, the High Court directed the Board of Revenue to state a case on the following question : "Whether the petitioner is entitled to claim a deduction on account of sale of mustard seed to the extent of Rs. 1,00,513-11-9 to Messrs. Panna Lal Binjraj as sales made to a registered dealer under the Sch ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd directed the Board to state a case on that question. Nor did the appellant move against the judgment and order of the High Court dated January 21, 1957, by which the High Court answered the one question referred to it adversely to the appellant. On the facts stated above the question which has arisen is whether as a matter of practice of this court, the appellant is entitled to be heard on merits in the three appeals when special leave was neither asked for nor granted in respect of the subsequent orders of the High Court relating to the assessments in question which have now become final between the parties thereto. In other words, the question is--whether the High Court should be allowed to be by-passed in the manner sought to be done by the appellant in these three appeals ? The position is quite clear : With regard to two of the assessment orders the High Court held that no questions of law arose at all; with regard to the third assessment order the High Court held that only one question of law arose and it answered that question against the appellant. Can the appellant now ignore these orders of the High Court and ask us to consider on merits the orders of the Board of Re ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Act in order to bring out clearly the scheme and object of the Act. The charging section is section 4 which says in effect that every dealer whose gross turnover exceeds a particular amount in a year shall be liable to pay tax under the Act on sales taking place in Bihar. Section 5 lays down the rate of tax. The assessment section is section 13 which states the various circumstances in which the assessing authority may make the assessment. Section 24 of the Act provides for an appeal, revision or review of the assessment. Then comes section 25, the scheme of which is analogous to that of section 66 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922. Under sub-section (1) of section 25, the dealer or Commissioner who is aggrieved by an order made by the Board under sub-section (4) of section 24 may by application in writing require the Board to refer to the High Court any question of law arising out of such an order ; if for reason to be recorded in writing the Board refuses to make such reference, the applicant may under sub-section (2) of section 25 apply to the High Court against such refusal. If the High Court is not satisfied that such refusal was justified, it may require the Board to st ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... having regard to the practice of this court and the limitations which this court itself has laid down with regard to the exercise of its discretion under article 136. What are these limitations ? In Pritam Singh v. The State this court indicated the nature of these limitations in the following observations : "On a careful examination of article 136 along with the preceding article, it seems clear that the wide discretionary power with which this court, is invested under it is to be exercised sparingly and in exceptional cases only, and as far as possible a more or less uniform standard should be adopted in granting special leave in the wide range of matters which can come up before it under this article. By virtue of this article, we can grant special leave in civil cases, in criminal cases, in income-tax cases, in cases which come up before different kinds of tribunals and in a variety of other cases. The only uniform standard which in on opinion can be laid down in the circumstances is that the court should grant special leave to appeal only in those cases where special circumstances are shown to exist ... Generally speaking, this court will not grant special leave, unless i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ourt by preferring these appeals directly from the orders of the Board of Revenue, and in one appeal from the orders of the Board refusing to make a reference to the High Court. The practice of this court is also against the appellant. The earliest decision on this point is that of Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd., and learned counsel for the appellant has relied on it in support of his argument that this court had in some previous cases interfered with an order of the Tribunal in exercise of its power under article 136 even though the assessee had not moved against the order of the High Court. In Dhakeswari's case what happened was this. The assessee, having exhausted all his remedies under the Income-tax Act, 1922, including that under section 66(2) for the issue of a mandamus to the Tribunal, made an application to this court for special leave to appeal against the order of the Tribunal; this court granted special leave and in the appeal filed in pursuance thereof quashed the order of the Tribunal. But the decision in Dhakeswari's case, must be read in the light of the special circumstances which existed there. It was found by this court that the Tribunal had violated certain fundam ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Baldev Singh v. Commissioner of Income-tax was also a decision special to its own facts. There the application to the Tribunal was barred by time--in circumstances which were beyond the control of the appellant. The Tribunal dismissed the application for a reference on the ground of limitation and the High Court had no power to extend the time. In these circumstances the appellant asked for special leave and condonation of delay. Special leave was granted by condoning the delay. More in point is the decision in Govindarajulu Mudaliar v. Commissioner of Income-tax, which was concerned with appeals from the decision of the Tribunal by special leave, after an application under section 66(2) had been dismissed by the High Court. This court then observed : "We must mention that against the order of the Tribunal the appellant applied for reference to the High Court under section 66(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, and the learned judges of the High Court dismissed that application. No appeal has been preferred against that at all. The present appeal is against the decision of the Tribunal itself. It is no doubt true that this court has decided in Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. Commi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... mity of courts and even though we are a court which could in certain events set aside and overrule the decisions of the High Court concerned, we cannot bypass the normal procedure which is to be adopted for this purpose and achieve the result indirectly in the manner suggested by the appellants. We, therefore, think that in the circumstances here it would be inappropriate on our part to enter upon an adjudication of these appeals on merits. We would, therefore, dismiss these appeals without anything more." We think that these observations apply with equal force, here. A careful examination of the previous decisions of this court shows that whenever the question was considered, this court said that save in exceptional and special circumstances such as were found in Dhakeswari's case or Baldev Singh's case it would not exercise its power under article 136 in such a way as to bypass the High Court and ignore the latter's decision, a decision which has become final and binding on the parties thereto, by entertaining appeals directly from the orders of a Tribunal. Such exercise of power would be particularly inadvisable in a case where the result may be a conflict of decisions of tw ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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