Statutory charge on transferred property and the availability of a civil remedy can defeat writ relief in sales tax recovery.

Arrears of sales tax are described as creating a statutory charge on the dealer's property under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, and that charge is stated to continue against transferred property until discharged, so a bona fide purchaser does not automatically defeat revenue recovery. The text also notes that a person aggrieved by recovery proceedings may have a specific civil remedy under the Madras Revenue Recovery Act, and that writ relief under Article 226 is ordinarily not the proper route where that statutory remedy is available. The recovery notice is therefore presented as sustainable subject to the available civil challenge.

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Issues: (i) Whether arrears of sales tax constituted a statutory charge on the transferred property so as to permit recovery proceedings against the purchaser, and (ii) whether the petitioner could invoke Article 226 of the Constitution of India instead of pursuing the civil remedy provided under the Revenue Recovery Act.

Issue (i): Whether arrears of sales tax constituted a statutory charge on the transferred property so as to permit recovery proceedings against the purchaser.

Analysis: Section 24 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 created a charge on the property of the dealer for arrears of sales tax, and those arrears were recoverable as arrears of land revenue. By the statutory fiction in the recovery law, the revenue could proceed against the charged property even after transfer, because the charge continued to burden the property until discharged according to law. The purchaser's status as a bona fide transferee did not extinguish the statutory charge attaching to the property.

Conclusion: The property remained liable to recovery proceedings for the vendor's sales tax arrears, and the challenge to that extent failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the petitioner could invoke Article 226 of the Constitution of India instead of pursuing the civil remedy provided under the Revenue Recovery Act.

Analysis: Section 59 of the Madras Revenue Recovery Act, 1864 expressly preserved the right of a person deeming himself aggrieved by proceedings under the Act to seek redress in civil court within the prescribed time. The petitioner was treated as a person aggrieved by the notice and the ensuing recovery steps, and the proper course was to seek relief by suit rather than by writ. In these circumstances, the impugned notice was not fit to be quashed in writ jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The writ petition was not maintainable, and the petitioner was relegated to the civil remedy under the Act.

Final Conclusion: The recovery notice was sustained, the petitioner was left to pursue the statutory civil remedy, and the writ petition failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a sales tax statute creates a charge on the dealer's property for arrears, the charge continues to bind the transferred property, and a transferee aggrieved by recovery proceedings must ordinarily pursue the specific civil remedy preserved by the recovery statute rather than seek writ relief.

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