Refund proceedings cannot reopen a concluded appellate order and must stay limited to quantification of the refund

Refund proceedings under the Haryana Value Added Tax Act are confined to quantifying the refundable amount and cannot be used to reopen the merits of the concluded assessment or appellate decision. The refund authority must give effect to the appellate order already passed in favour of the assessee and has no power to exercise review, appeal, or revisional jurisdiction while determining refund. An order rejecting refund by disregarding the appellate decision is therefore unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the authority determining refund under the Haryana Value Added Tax Act, 2003 could ignore the appellate order and go behind it while quantifying the refund.

Analysis: The refund authority was required to act within the limited scope of determining the amount refundable and had to respect the appellate order already passed in favour of the assessee. The power to quantify refund did not include any authority to re-examine the merits of the liability or to exercise review, appeal, or revisional jurisdiction over the concluded appellate decision. The earlier view that refund proceedings are confined to quantification and cannot reopen the assessment position governed the matter.

Conclusion: The refund authority could not disregard the appellate order, and the impugned order rejecting refund was unsustainable.

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