Kovilpatti Steel Rolling Industries P. Ltd. vs Commercial Tax Officer, Kovilpatti and Others

Ratnavel Pandian, J.—These two writ appeals arise out of the common order of Nainar Sundaram, J., dated 27th March, 1981 made in

Writ Petitions Nos. 1642 and 1643 of 1981 dismissing the said petitions. The learned Judge had made the following observations :

This Memorandum is not clear as to whether it relates to the arrears that are now sought to be collected. For sheer lack of clarity and precision

and on the ground of ambiguity, I am not able to entertain these writ petitions. These are not cases of formal defects in the expression of prayers.

Accordingly the writ petitions will stand dismissed.

Apart from agreeing with the reasoning given by the learned Judge we would like to observe that as there is a revision provided u/s 33 of the

Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act to the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, the appellant herein can approach the said authority by

way of a revision as against the order passed by the assessing authority. In this connection, we would like to refer to a Division Bench judgment of

this Court reported in Nandhi Rerolling Mills P. Ltd. v. Union of India (1985) WLR 59 and the decision of the Supreme Court in Titaghur Paper

Mills Co. Ltd. and Another Vs. State of Orissa and Others, . Following the principle laid down in the above two decisions, we are clearly of the

opinion that as against the orders which are the subject-matter of the writ petitions, the appellants'' remedy is by way of a revision before the

Deputy Commissioner. We therefore dismiss the writ appeals without going into the merits of the case with an observation that the assessee may

file revisions before the Deputy Commissioner along with an application for condonation of delay and as and when such revisions are filed, the

Deputy Commissioner will consider the question of exclusion of the time taken during the pendency of the writ petitions and the writ appeals. The

learned Additional Government Pleader also submits that the Deputy Commissioner will entertain the revisions condoning the delay as a special

case since a lot of facts have to be gone into in the revision petitions on the merits of the case. With the above directions, the writ appeals are

dismissed. There will be no order as to costs in both the appeals.