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Issues: (i) Whether the High Court could reframe, under Section 35G of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, a question of law in a form different from the question sought to be referred. (ii) Whether the scope of Section 35G(3) was wider than Section 35G(1) so as to permit the High Court to direct reference of a question not raised in the application before the Tribunal.
Issue (i): Whether the High Court could reframe, under Section 35G of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, a question of law in a form different from the question sought to be referred.
Analysis: The reference jurisdiction under Section 35G is limited to questions of law arising out of the Tribunal's order and specifically sought to be referred. The Court applied the settled principles that a question neither raised before the Tribunal nor formulated in the reference application cannot be enlarged by the High Court into an altogether different question. Reframing is permissible only to remove obscurity in the very question already formulated, not to introduce a new legal issue.
Conclusion: The High Court could not reframe the question in a different form from that sought in the reference application.
Issue (ii): Whether the scope of Section 35G(3) was wider than Section 35G(1) so as to permit the High Court to direct reference of a question not raised in the application before the Tribunal.
Analysis: The Court held that sub-section (3) does not confer a broader substantive power than sub-section (1). The High Court's function is in the nature of a limited mandamus to require the Tribunal to state a case on the very question that the applicant had asked the Tribunal to refer and which the Tribunal had refused. The right of the litigant, the power of the Tribunal, and the jurisdiction of the High Court were treated as co-extensive. The Court also accepted that the governing principle laid down in Scindia Steam Navigation controlled the scope of the reference jurisdiction.
Conclusion: Section 35G(3) did not permit reference of a fresh or differently framed question, and the preliminary objection was rightly upheld.
Final Conclusion: The reference application failed because the High Court's jurisdiction under Section 35G was confined to the questions specifically raised and refused, and it could not be expanded to formulate a new issue.
Ratio Decidendi: In a statutory reference proceeding, the High Court cannot enlarge its jurisdiction beyond the question specifically raised before the Tribunal and refused by it; reframing is allowed only to remove ambiguity in the same question, not to introduce a new one.
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