Coercive tax recovery barred while exemption-from-pre-deposit request remains pending before the Tribunal.

Where an appeal and a connected application for exemption from pre-deposit or stay of recovery are pending before the Tribunal, departmental authorities should not use coercive methods to recover tax and penalty before that application is adjudicated. The Court applied the settled rule that interim relief must be considered first, and forcible recovery during the pendency of the exemption request is unjustified. The respondents were therefore restrained from proceeding with coercive recovery until the Tribunal decided the exemption application.

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Issues: Whether the authorities could pursue coercive recovery of tax and penalty while the assessee's application for exemption from pre-deposit and stay of recovery was pending before the Tribunal.

Analysis: The Court applied the earlier rule that once the statute provides an appeal and an application for interim relief is pending, the departmental authorities should not adopt coercive methods for recovery before the Tribunal has considered the request. Since the assessee's application for exemption had not yet been decided, forcible recovery was held to be unjustified.

Conclusion: The respondents were restrained from using coercive methods to recover the tax and penalty until the Tribunal decided the exemption application.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an appeal and a connected application for exemption from pre-deposit or stay are pending before the appellate forum, coercive recovery should not be undertaken before that application is adjudicated.

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