Gujarat High Court
Reliance Industries Ltd. vs State Of Gujarat on 12 October, 2018
Author: Akil Kureshi
Bench: Akil Kureshi, B.N. Karia
C/SCA/14206/2018 ORDER
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14206 of 2018
With
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14207 of 2018
With
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14209 of 2018
With
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14212 of 2018
With
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14213 of 2018
With
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 14215 of 2018
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RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD.
Versus
STATE OF GUJARAT
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Appearance :
Mr SN SOPARKAR, Sr Advocate with Mr. UCHIT N SHETH, Advocate for the
PETITIONERS
Mr PRANAV TRIVEDI, AGP for the RESPONDENT(s) No. 1,2,3
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CORAM: HONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE AKIL KURESHI
and
HONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE B.N. KARIA
12th October 2018
ORAL ORDER (PER : HONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE AKIL KURESHI)
Petitioners have challenged vires of Section 84A of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act, 2003 ["VAT Act" for short] with retrospective effect from 1st April 2006 ie., from inception.
Learned AGP prayed for time for filing reply, stand over to 30 th November 2018.
Page 1 of 3 Downloaded on : Thu Apr 16 20:50:50 IST 2020 C/SCA/14206/2018 ORDER
Counsel for the petitioner submitted that pursuant to such amendment, Department has also initiated revision proceedings, reopening issues which have been closed long time back. He pointed out that the Value Added Tax Tribunal as well as the High Court have held the question of reduction of input tax credit in terms of Section 11 [3](b) of the Value Added Tax Act, 2003 in favour of the assessee. It was only in the case of State of Gujarat vs. Reliance Industries Limited, reported in [2017] 16 SCC 28, the Supreme Court reversed this judicial trend. By virtue of this judgment, though the Department may have right to insist that the input tax credit under Section 11 [3](b) of the VAT Act would be reversal twice in pending cases, the same cannot be applied to cases which have been long past closed. By virtue of Section 84A, now inserted in the VAT Act with retrospective effect, the State legislature desires to reopen number of cases on this principle, effectively nullifying the limitation provision contained in the VAT Act for exercising revisional jurisdiction. He submitted that the provision is thus arbitrary, and therefore, violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
Considering the submissions made, by way of ad interim relief, the revisional authority is prevented from passing final order Page 2 of 3 Downloaded on : Thu Apr 16 20:50:50 IST 2020 C/SCA/14206/2018 ORDER without leave of the Court, though the revision proceedings; if initiated may go on.
[Akil Kureshi, J.] [B.N Karia, J.] Prakash Page 3 of 3 Downloaded on : Thu Apr 16 20:50:50 IST 2020