2022 (1) TMI 664

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....ssment year 2015-16 and the other pertains to assessment year 2016-17. 2. Impugned orders have been made under Section 27 of 'Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 (Tamil Nadu Act 32 of 2006)' [hereinafter 'TNVAT Act' for the sake of convenience and clarity]. To be noted, this is second round of litigation. Earlier, writ petitioner came to this Court vide W.P.(MD)No.4760 of 2021 and that was disposed of by a Hon'ble Single Judge vide order dated 09.03.2021. In that order, the respondent was directed to furnish copies of the orders qua assessment years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017, pursuant to which impugned orders were served on the writ petitioner under cover of a letter dated 08.04.2021. The prayer in the captioned writ p....

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....ning arguments which have been captured elsewhere in this order supra. 6. This Court has carefully considered the rival submissions and this Court is not inclined to interfere qua impugned orders and the reasons are as follows: a) regarding the first point of opportunity not being given, as rightly pointed out by learned State Counsel two notices one dated 30.11.2017 and another dated 01.10.2018 have been issued affording personal hearing to the writ petitioner and calling for objections. There is a clear mention about one of these two notices i.e., pre-revisional notice i.e., 30.11.2017 notice and this is contained in paragraph 4 of the writ affidavit. Writ petitioner has not even mentioned whether he responded to the notice or....

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....fication. A careful perusal of the impugned orders reveal that the respondent has made some verification inter alia on the basis of available records (besides resorting to the departmental intranet website) and thereafter, accepted the proposals. Therefore, it cannot be gainsaid that verification qua mismatch has not been done at all. Though not specifically pointed out, it is obvious that this argument is predicated on JKM Graphics principle {JKM Graphics Solutions Private Limited Vs. CTO reported in (2017) 99 VST 343 (Mad)}. JKM principle does not aid the petitioner in the case on hand as there is some discussion about correlation qua mismatch albeit resorting available records. There is another reason as to why the JKM principles does no....

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....ires of the statute is in question or where private or public wrongs are so inextricably mixed up and the prevention of public injury and the vindication of public justice require it that recourse may be had to Article 226 of the Constitution. But then the Court must have good and sufficient reason to bypass the alternative remedy provided by statute. Surely matters involving the revenue where statutory remedies are available are not such matters. We can also take judicial notice of the fact that the vast majority of the petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution are filed solely for the purpose of obtaining interim orders and thereafter prolong the proceedings by one device or the other. The practice certainly needs to be strongly dis....

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....e a code unto themselves inasmuch as they not only contain comprehensive procedure for recovery of the dues but also envisage constitution of quasi-judicial bodies for redressal of the grievance of any aggrieved person. Therefore, in all such cases, the High Court must insist that before availing remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution, a person must exhaust the remedies available under the relevant statute. 55.It is a matter of serious concern that despite repeated pronouncement of this Court, the High Courts continue to ignore the availability of statutory remedies under the DRT Act and the SARFAESI Act and exercise jurisdiction under Article 226 for passing orders which have serious adverse impact on the right of banks and ....

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....e vires of the statute or delegated legislation. 12. In the present case, none of the above exceptions was established. There was, in fact, no violation of the principles of natural justice since a notice was served on the person in charge of the conveyance. In this backdrop, it was CA 5121/2021 7 not appropriate for the High Court to entertain a writ petition. The assessment of facts would have to be carried out by the appellate authority. As a matter of fact, the High Court has while doing this exercise proceeded on the basis of surmises. However, since we are inclined to relegate the respondent to the pursuit of the alternate statutory remedy under Section 107, this Court makes no observation on the merits of the case of the res....