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Judgment
Rajan Roy, J.—Heard learned counsel for the parties.
This is a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India challenging an order dated 02.12.2016 passed by the Commercial Trade Tax Tribunal, Lucknow on the application of the petitioner for waiver of the statutory deposit under second proviso to Section 57 Clause (a) and (b) whereby the Tribunal after considering the facts of the case has opined to wave 33% statutory deposit to the extent of sixteen and half percent meaning thereby remaining sixteen and half percent of the due amount which comes to about fifty seven and half lacs which is to be deposited by the petitioner who is engaged in the business of sale of Motor Vehicles. The relevant proviso to Section 57 reads as under:-
"Provided further that-
(a) no application for stay of recovery of any disputed amount of tax, fee or penalty shall be entertained unless the applicant has furnished satisfactory proof of the payment of not less than one third of such disputed amount in addition to the amount required to be deposited under sub-section (3) of Section 55;
(b) the Tribunal nay, for special and adequate reasons to be recorded in writing, waive or relax the requirement of clause (a) regarding payment of the one-third of such disputed amount."
The waiver of the due amount under the aforesaid provision is at the discretion of the Tribunal, albeit, such discretion is to be exercised in a reasonable manner.
On a perusal of the impugned order, the Court finds that the Tribunal has given reasons in support of its order which can not be faulted. Now to say that based on these very reasons total waiver should have been granted is a matter of which lies purely within the discretion of the Tribunal, as, there is no such mathematical parameter to ascertain as to what extent waiver should be granted. The amount to be deposited will be subject to result of the appeal.
Therefore, in these circumstances, the Court does not find any reason to interfere with the discretion exercised by the Tribunal. It is, however, provided that the appeal shall be disposed of by the Tribunal expeditiously, say, within next two months. Let the appeal be decided accordingly. This shall have no adverse bearing on the stay application which is said to have been filed by the petitioner for stay of the impugned order before the Tribunal.
Subject to the above, the writ petition is dismissed.