Court dismisses writ appeal challenging rejection of declarations under Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme, 1998

The Court dismissed the writ appeal challenging the rejection of declarations under the Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme, 1998, due to pending writ petitions filed after the finality of orders. Emphasizing that creating artificial pendency to benefit from the scheme is impermissible, the Court found the writ petition was not pending as it was filed three years after the final orders. Referring to Rule 13 of the Writ Proceeding Rules of 1977, the Court upheld the decision that the scheme does not apply in such circumstances, highlighting that any attempt to manipulate pendency defeats the scheme's purpose.

---

---

Issues:
Challenge to dismissal of writ petition under Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme, 1998 for settling tax arrears at a discount. Applicability of Section 95(ii)(c) of the Scheme to cases where no appeal, reference, or writ petition is admitted and pending. Rejection of declarations made under Section 88 of the Act due to pending writ petitions. Delay in filing writ petition after orders became final.

Analysis:
The case involved writ appeals challenging the dismissal of a writ petition under the Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme, 1998, introduced to settle tax arrears at a discount. Section 95(ii)(c) of the Scheme excludes its application to cases where no appeal, reference, or writ petition is admitted and pending. The appellants made declarations under Section 88 of the Act on 30-12-1998 and 31-12-1998, but their declarations were rejected by the respondent. The rejection was based on the writ petitions filed a few days before making the declarations, challenging previous orders. The Court issued notice regarding the writ petitions, but the writ petitions were not admitted and pending on that date.

The Court analyzed Rule 13 of the Writ Proceeding Rules of 1977, which allows notice to be issued before the rule is issued. The notice issued in this case was subject to the maintainability of the writ petition, indicating that the writ petition was not pending on that day. The Court referred to a previous judgment highlighting that the pendency of proceedings for the Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme should be bona fide, and creating artificial pendency after the finality of orders to benefit from the scheme is impermissible. The Court emphasized that any attempt to create such artificial pendency would defeat the purpose of the scheme.

Ultimately, the Court found no merit in the writ appeal, as the writ petition was filed after a significant delay of three years following the finality of the orders. Citing the previous judgment, the Court dismissed the writ appeal accordingly, upholding the decision that the writ petition was not pending and the scheme would not apply in such circumstances.

---