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6) Petitioners were advised to prefer an Appeal before CCRA under Section 53 of the Stamp Act. The said Appeal came to be rejected by CCRA by Order dated 16 April 2019. Petitioners preferred Writ Petition No.8276 of 2019 in this Court challenging Orders dated 3 March 2018 and 16 April 2019 passed by CCRA. This Court disposed of the Petition by Order dated 4 October 2022 observing that the Order dated 3 March 2018 was passed behind the back of Petitioners and that the objection about absence of power of review was not decided. This Court therefore set aside Orders dated 3 March 2018 and 16 April 2019 and directed CCRA to decide the application for refund afresh after hearing the Petitioners. CCRA thereafter proceeded to pass Order dated 16 December 2022 rejecting the Appeal holding that Petitioners are not eligible for grant of refund of stamp duty. Aggrieved by the Order dated 16 December 2022 passed by CCRA, Petitioners have preferred the present Petition.

14. Therefore, in view of the above, the law on the point can be summarised to the effect that in the absence of any statutory provision for review, entertaining an application for review or under the garb of clarification/modification/correction is not permissible."

(emphasis supplied)

14) No provision is pointed out to me, which enables or empowers CCRA to review its own orders. In that sense, CCRA is not clothed with power of review under the provisions of the Stamp Act. The issue here is however slightly different. To my mind, there are at least two factors which would protect the impugned order dated 16 December 2022 passed by CCRA from falling foul of absence of statutory power of review. The first reason being the conduct of Petitioners coupled with Order passed by this Court in previous round of litigation on 4 October 2022. After CCRA rejected application for refund by Order dated 3 March 2018, which was directly contradictory to the previous Order dated 8 January 2018, Petitioners choose to file an "Appeal" under Section 53 of the Stamp Act before CCRA. Thus, Appeal against decision of CCRA was filed by Petitioners before CCRA. Under Section 53(1A) of Stamp Act, Appeal before CCRA lies against an Order passed Collector. However, Petitioner choose to file Appeal under Section 53 challenging the decision of CCRA. Without going further into the issue of maintainability of that Appeal, it would be relevant to note that the Petitioners believed that CCRA had power to correct the Order dated 3 March 2018. This appears to be the reason why in the Appeal filed before CCRA, Petitioners did not raise a ground that CCRA did not have power of reviewing its own Order. This was done as Petitioners, in that sense, was seeking review of CCRA's Order dated 3 March 2018 through proceedings which were branded as "Appeal". In Ground Clause IV, Petitioners vaguely stated that the Order could not be reversed suo moto by Sonali Mane WP-2018-2024.doc CCRA. Thus what was emphasized was, thus not lack of power of review, but lack of power to reverse the Order " suo moto". Petitioners, however believed that 'on application' power of reversal could be exercised by CCRA and therefore sought reversal of order dated 3 March 2018.

15) After the Appeal was rejected by CCRA by Order dated 16 April 2019, Petitioners filed Writ Petition No. 8276 of 2019 challenging the Orders dated 3 March 2018 and 16 April 2019 before this Court. Petitioners did not press for setting aside Order dated 3 March 2019 on the ground of lack of power of review, but agreed for remand of the proceedings before CCRA for being decided afresh. Though it cannot be stated that the Order passed by this Court on 4 October 2022 was with consent of Petitioners, it is also true that Petitioners did not challenge the Order dated 4 October 2022 and participated in proceedings before CCRA, which ultimately resulted in passing Order dated 16 December 2022. Considering the above position, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, I am not inclined to set aside the Order dated 16 December 2022 only on the ground that lack of power of review with CCRA.

16) The second reason for not interfering with the Order of CCRA on the ground of lack of power of review is the manner in which the cases for refund of stamp duty are processed. In the present case, the application for refund was submitted by Petitioners before Collector of Stamps, Mumbai. The same was apparently processed by the Additional Collector of Stamps, Mumbai, who invited Petitioners for hearing by letter on 30 October 2017. The Collector of Stamps, Mumbai conducted further hearing, which is apparent from letter dated 23 November 2016. The hearing in the matter is thus held by Collector of Stamps and Additional Collector of Stamps. What is done by CCRA is not adjudication of proposal Sonali Mane WP-2018-2024.doc for refund, as he did not conduct hearing. Apparently, he merely relied upon proposal submitted by Additional Collector of Stamps recommending refund of stamp duty to the Petitioners and possibly accorded his approval to the recommendation. CCRA merely accepted the said proposal and directed refund vide Order dated 8 January 2018. The enquiry with regard to permissibility for sanction of refund was apparently conducted by Additional Collector of Stamps, who recommended the refund to CCRA. It appears that, though Section 47 of the Stamp Act empowers Collector to make an Order of refund, the case was forwarded to CCRA, possibly on account of distribution of financial powers amongst authorities. The proposal was accordingly sanctioned by CCRA on 8 January 2018. Thus the entire adjudication in the present case is not conducted by CCRA and most part thereof is done by Collector of Stamps and Additional Collector of Stamp Mumbai. This is however not to suggest that CCRA is entitled to review his own Orders. In the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, CCRA appears to have erroneously accepted the proposal submitted by Additional Collector of Stamp Mumbai. The error is corrected by subsequent Order dated 3 March 2018. I am therefore not inclined to set aside the impugned Orders on technical reason of absence of power of review with CCRA.