Mandatory pre-deposit for tax appeal remains enforceable; revisional power cannot dilute statutory appellate conditions.

The appellate authority's insistence on a twenty-five per cent pre-deposit before an appeal could be entertained reflects the mandatory language of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, which conditions appellate maintainability on compliance with the prescribed deposit. Revisional power under the Act remains subject to the statute's other provisions, and the proviso allowing relaxation in revision cannot be used to waive a separate appellate pre-deposit requirement. Where the challenge concerns only the deposit direction and not the assessment on merits, revisional interference is not warranted. The text emphasises that a statutory appeal operates only within the limits fixed by the legislation, and no implied relaxation mechanism can be read into the Act.

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Issues: Whether the Commissioner of Taxes could interfere in revision with the appellate authority's direction requiring pre-deposit of twenty-five per cent of the disputed tax, interest and penalty under section 79(5) of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003.

Analysis: The appellate authority's direction was founded on the absolute language of section 79(5), which makes entertainment of an appeal conditional on proof of payment of the prescribed minimum pre-deposit. Section 82 confers revisional power, but that power is expressly made subject to the other provisions of the Act. The proviso to section 82(2A) permits relaxation only in relation to the revisional application itself, and cannot be extended to dilute the separate statutory condition attached to an appeal under section 79(5). Since the challenge before the revisional authority was only to the deposit direction and not to the assessment on merits, the revisional authority rightly declined interference. A statutory right of appeal can operate only within the limits fixed by the statute, and the court cannot read into the enactment a relaxation mechanism that the legislature did not provide.

Conclusion: The revisional authority correctly upheld the pre-deposit requirement, and the challenge to its order failed.

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