2018 (2) TMI 273

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....nt Advocate has raised a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the writ petitions on the ground that the petitioner has an effective alternate remedy of filing an appeal before the Appellate Authority as provided under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 (hereinafter called the TNVAT Act, 2006). In support of her contention, reliance is placed on the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Punjab National Bank Vs. O.C.Krishnan [Civil Appeal No.5287 of 2011 dated 13.8.2001]. 3. I have carefully considered the said submissions of the learned Government Advocate. 4. In these writ petitions, the challenge is to the orders of assessment passed by the respondent under the provisions o....

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....ioner is justified in approaching this Court under Article 226 of The Constitution of India. 6. One more aspect, which weighs in the mind of this Court, to entertain these writ petitions is that the Notification issued by the Government of Tamil Nadu has been in vogue since July 2011 and for all these years, the petitioner has been supplying LDO to the Neyveli Lignite Corporation at reduced rate of 5%. Thus, the reopening proceedings would have a cascading effect on all future transactions that may be done by the petitioner Corporation and other similar Oil Corporations and this can lead to an escalation in the cost of the product ultimately resulting in increased cost of production of electricity using LDO. Thus, for the above reasons, ....

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....e impugned orders, the respondent made certain observations with regard to the manufacturing process, which is adopted for the production of LDO. Some of the paragraphs mentioned in the impugned orders appear to have been taken from some text, the source of which has not been disclosed in the impugned orders. At best, the observations made in the impugned orders can be construed as the personal opinion of the Assessing Officer. In any event, the respondent, having now opened up his mind and disclosed as to why he proposed to reopen the assessments, which were deemed to have been completed, the petitioner should have an opportunity to put forth their objections. 10. The learned counsel for the petitioner has further submitted that the imp....

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....fy the requirement of affording an effective opportunity of personal hearing. 13. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that while considering the scope of an exemption notification, it is necessary for the respondent to adopt the common parlance test and in this regard, reliance has been placed on the decision of the Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Ramavatar Vs. Budhaiprasad [reported in 1961 (12) STC 286] wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court considered as to how the term 'vegetables' should be understood and it was pointed out that the term 'vegetables' is to be understood as commonly understood denoting those classes of vegetable matter which are grown in kitchen garde....