Judicial review of Settlement Commission orders is limited to illegality or statutory breach, not reappraisal of plausible factual findings.

Judicial review under Article 226 over a Settlement Commission order is limited to illegality in procedure or contravention of the Act; the High Court cannot sit in appeal over the Commission's factual findings or document-based interpretation. Where the receipts admitted of more than one plausible meaning, the Commission's acceptance of one reasonable interpretation was not arbitrary or perverse. The Revenue's allegation of misrepresentation and lack of full and true disclosure failed because it depended entirely on its preferred reading of the receipts, and no infirmity in the decision-making process was shown. The challenge to the Settlement Commission's order therefore failed.

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Issues: Whether the High Court could interfere under Article 226 with the Settlement Commission's order on the basis that the receipts were liable to be construed as interest payments rather than loans and, on that premise, that there had been no full and true disclosure before the Settlement Commission.

Analysis: The scope of judicial review over an order of the Settlement Commission is confined to examining legality of the procedure and whether the order is contrary to the provisions of the Act; the High Court does not sit in appeal over the Commission's factual conclusions or interpretation of documents. The disputed receipts admitted of more than one possible interpretation, and the interpretation accepted by the Settlement Commission was neither outlandish nor shown to be arbitrary or perverse. Since the Revenue's allegation of misrepresentation and non-disclosure depended entirely on accepting its own interpretation of the receipts, that foundation failed once the Commission's view was found to be a permissible one. No infirmity in the decision-making process was demonstrated.

Conclusion: The Settlement Commission's view was not liable to be interfered with, and the challenge to the order failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Judicial review of a Settlement Commission order is confined to illegality or contravention of the Act, and a plausible factual or documentary interpretation accepted by the Commission cannot be substituted merely because another view is also possible.

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