Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Cipla Limited vs National Pharmaceutical Pricing ... on 27 August, 2018
Bench: N.V. Ramana, Mohan M. Shantanagoudar
ITEM NO.20 COURT NO.7 SECTION IX
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 22384/2018
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 27-07-2018
in WP No. 2502/2018 passed by the High Court of Judicature at
Bombay)
CIPLA LIMITED Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
NATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL PRICING AUTHORITY & ORS. Respondent(s)
(FOR ADMISSION and I.R.)
Date : 27-08-2018 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MOHAN M. SHANTANAGOUDAR
For Petitioner(s)
Mr. Mukul Rohatgi, Sr. Adv.
Ms. Madhavi Divan, Adv.
Mr. Pranaya Goyal, AOR
Ms. Padhma Lakshmi Iyengar, Adv.
Ms. Priyakshi Bhatnagar, Adv.
Mr. Ieshan Sinha, Adv.
Mr. Pranav Saigal, Adv.
For Respondent(s)
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Heard the learned Senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner.
Issue notice.
The main grievance of the petitioner in this Special Leave Petition is that they were surprised to receive the impugned Demand Notice and that too without ever receiving the show-cause notice Signature Not Verified dated 4th January, 2017 from the respondents. The impugned Demand Digitally signed by VISHAL ANAND Date: 2018.08.30 15:27:58 IST Reason: Notice was purportedly issued under S.O. 1738 (E) dated 10th July, 2014 which was not applicable to the petitioner. By and under the impugned Demand Notice, Respondent No.1 referred to its purported -2- Show Cause Notice dated 4th January, 2017 (supposedly enclosed with the impugned Demand Notice). The respondents tried to recover the demand amount of Rs.81,25,406/- along with interest by way of proceedings under the Revenue Recovery Act,1890 and before that the petitioner has no knowledge about the demand and no notice is served upon it. Even though the plea was taken before the High Court but the said Court has not considered the same and directed the petitioner to pay 50% of the demanded amount. Normally, the impugned order which is interim in nature, we would have not entertained the Special Leave Petition, however, the material placed before us prima facie shows that no show-case notice was issued to the petitioner.
In view of the above, we set aside that portion of the order of the High Court whereby it directed the petitioner to deposit 50% of the demanded amount.
The order of the High Court is modified to the above extent. However, we make it very clear that the High Court can proceed with the matter.
We request the High Court to dispose of the Writ Petition pending before it expeditiously.
List the matter after eight weeks.
(VISHAL ANAND) (RAJ RANI NEGI) COURT MASTER (SH) ASSISTANT REGISTRAR