Personal hearing requirement under Kerala sales tax law cannot be delegated; subordinate hearing vitiates the clarification order.

Section 59A of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 requires the Commissioner to decide clarification disputes himself after giving the parties a reasonable opportunity to produce evidence and be heard. The hearing contemplated is personal, not merely institutional, because the statute names the Commissioner as the decision-maker and no rule authorises a subordinate to conduct the hearing in his place. Delegating the hearing to a subordinate officer therefore vitiates the order, and later approval of a draft order or an appellate hearing does not cure the defect.

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Issues: Whether, under section 59A of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963, the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes was required to personally hear the parties before deciding the clarification dispute, and whether delegation of the hearing to a subordinate officer vitiated the order.

Analysis: Section 59A(1) covers disputes involving adjudication of concrete lis-like questions, including taxability, liability, registration, and manufacture, which require factual ascertainment as well as interpretation of the statute and notifications. Section 59A(2) expressly requires the Commissioner to decide the question after giving the parties a reasonable opportunity to present their case, produce evidence, and be heard. In that setting, the hearing contemplated is personal and not merely institutional. Since the statute names the Commissioner as the decision-maker and no procedural rule authorises a subordinate to conduct the hearing in his place, the rule that the one who hears must decide applied. The subsequent approval of a draft order and the appellate hearing did not cure the defect.

Conclusion: The order was vitiated by violation of the statutory hearing requirement and was liable to be set aside, with the matter required to be reconsidered afresh by the Commissioner in compliance with section 59A(2).

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