M/S Ratti Woolen Mills vs State Of Punjab And Others on 21 July, 2009

CWP No. 8309 of 2009                   1

           IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
                        CHANDIGARH.

                          CWP No. 8309 of 2009
                          Date of decision 21 .7.2009


M/s Ratti Woolen Mills                       ... Petitioner

                          Versus

State of Punjab and others                   ... Respondents.

CORAM:       HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR
             HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASWANT SINGH

Present:     Mr.S.K.Mukhi ,Advocate for the petitioner


1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement ?
2. To be referred to the Reporter or not ?
3. Whether the judgement should be reported in the Digest ?

M.M.KUMAR, J.

The petitioner is a firm engaged in the manufacture of yarn and

is based at Ludhiana. The challenge in this petition is to the order of

assessment dated 27.2.2009 (P.1) passed by the Assessing Authority,

Department of Excise and Taxation in respect of the assessment year 1992-

93 holding that the petitioner was not entitled to seek exemption in respect

of sales made to registered dealers for various reasons given in the

assessment order. The basic reason for approaching this Court appears to be

that the petitioner has felt that the issue of sales made to registered dealers

cannot be re-opened because it stood decided in favour of the petitioner by

the Value Added Tax Tribunal, Punjab (for brevity ‘the Tribunal’) vide its

order dated 11.7.2006 (P.6) in the earlier round of litigation.

We have heard learned counsel for the petitioner at length and

find that the order of assessment is an appealable order under Section 20 of

the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 (for brevity ‘the Act’). Keeping in
CWP No. 8309 of 2009 2

view the totality of facts and circumstances we are not inclined to exercise

our jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution as it cannot be

concluded after re-appreciating evidence whether benefit of sales made to

registered dealers were genuine or not. The issue can be agitated more

appropriately by filing an appeal under Section 20 of the Act. Accordingly

the writ petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal

against the assessment order before the appropriate authority. Before

parting, we wish to clarify that any observation made in this order shall not

be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the controversy

and the appellate authority shall proceed in accordance with law.

                                             (M.M.Kumar)
                                               Judge



                                             (Jaswant Singh)
21.7.2009                                       Judge

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