Appellate tribunal power is limited to issues preserved in appeal; a voluntarily abandoned turnover claim cannot be revived.

In an appeal under Section 36(3)(a)(iii) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, the Tribunal's power to pass appropriate orders was confined to matters actually in issue before it. A turnover item expressly given up by the assessee before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner could not later be revived in remand proceedings or higher appeal, even by relying on subsequent judicial developments. The appellate process could not extend beyond the subject-matter preserved in the first appeal, and a voluntarily abandoned claim remained outside the Tribunal's remit.

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Issues: Whether, in an appeal under Section 36(3)(a)(iii) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959, the Tribunal could reopen and remit for fresh consideration a turnover item that the assessee had voluntarily given up before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner.

Analysis: The assessee had restricted the dispute before the first appellate authority to a limited turnover and had expressly abandoned the larger turnover claim. The appellate power to pass such orders as it may think fit was held to extend only to matters actually in issue in the appeal. A party who voluntarily abandons a claim cannot later resurrect it in higher appeal by relying on subsequent judicial decisions. The expression conferring power on the Tribunal was treated as limited by the scope of the appeal, and not as authority to travel beyond the subject-matter preserved before the first appellate authority.

Conclusion: The Tribunal could not include the voluntarily abandoned turnover in the remand, and the assessee was not entitled to reopen that part of the assessment.

Final Conclusion: The revisional challenge failed because the Tribunal's order was confined to the disputed turnover that survived in appeal, and the dismissal of the tax case was affirmed.

Ratio Decidendi: An appellate tribunal can grant further relief only in respect of matters actually preserved and in issue before it; a voluntarily abandoned claim cannot be reopened in higher appeal by invoking the tribunal's general power to pass such orders as it thinks fit.

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