Reference jurisdiction under sales tax law is limited to questions of law; non-production of prescribed Form 3 remained a factual dispute.

Reference jurisdiction under Section 55 of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Sales Tax Act, 2005 is confined to questions of law arising from the impugned order. Where the dispute concerns non-production of Form 3, the prescribed declaration under Rule 7(1) of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Tax Rules, 2006, the matter remains one of factual proof because the contractor can avoid double taxation only by proving, in the prescribed manner, that tax was paid by the sub-contractor under Section 6(1)(b). In the absence of Form 3 for several years, no referable question of law arose and the refusal to require a reference was justified.

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Issues: Whether the refusal to require a reference under Section 55(2) of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Sales Tax Act, 2005 was justified when the controversy turned on non-production of Form 3 and no question of law arose.

Analysis: Reference jurisdiction under Section 55 is confined to questions of law arising from the impugned order. The controversy raised by the applicant concerned production of Form 3 to establish that tax had already been paid by the sub-contractor. Under Section 6(1)(b) of the Act of 2005, the contractor escapes double taxation only by proving, in the prescribed manner, payment of tax by the sub-contractor. Rule 7(1) of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Tax Rules, 2006 makes Form 3 the prescribed declaration and the admitted proof for that claim. In the absence of Form 3 for several years, the issue remained one of factual proof, and no statutory duty was shown to require the Department to keep granting indefinite time to produce the form.

Conclusion: The refusal to make a reference was justified because the matter did not raise a referable question of law and was instead governed by a disputed question of fact.

Ratio Decidendi: A reference under Section 55(2) lies only where a genuine question of law arises; a dispute turning on non-production of the prescribed proof of tax payment by a sub-contractor remains a question of fact and cannot be converted into a referable legal issue.

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