Court No. - 33 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 38088 of 2010 Petitioner :- Pushp Dant Jain Respondent :- State Of U.P. & Others Petitioner Counsel :- Manish Kumar Nigam Respondent Counsel :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J.
Heard Sri Manish Kumar Nigam, learned counsel for the petitioner and the
learned Standing counsel.
A sale deed dated 24.1.2007 was registered on 31.1.2007 and the matter was
referred under Section 47A of the Indian Stamp Act for determining the
market value for the purposes of payment of stamp duty. The Deputy
Commissioner (Stamp) vide order dated 30.4.2007 determined the market
value and the deficiency.The said order was challenged by the petitioner in
appeal before the Commissioner. One of the main grounds of attack in the
appeal was that the Deputy Commissioner had passed order ex-parte without
service of any notice. The appellate authority has dismissed the appeal vide
order dated 31.3.2010. Both the orders have been impugned in the writ
petition.
The main thrust of argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that
the proceedings before the Deputy Commissioner were ex-parte and despite
the above question specifically being raised before the appellate authority it
was not considered. Secondly, the appellate authority has not assigned any
reasons for upholding the order of the Deputy Commissioner.
The impugned orders only state that the notices were served upon the
petitioner. The petitioner has annexed the complete order sheet of the case
before the Deputy Commissioner. The said order sheet does not in any way
reveal how and on which date notices were served. Mere statement that the
notices were served is not sufficient. Atleast the appellate court aught to have
discussed the above aspect before deciding the appeal on merits. In this view
of the matter, the appellate order can not be sustained.
Apart from the above, a plain reading of the appellate order indicates that it
has been passed in a very casual and cursory manner without application of
mind to the controversy involved in this appeal. In the absence of any
reasoning in support of the appellate order, I am of the view that the same can
not be sustained even on this count.
For the above two reasons, the appellate order dated 31.3.2010 is hereby
quashed and the matter is remanded to the Commissioner for decision afresh
expeditiously within a period of six months from the date of production of the
certified copy of this order in accordance with law after allowing the parties
opportunity to adduce evidence.
Order Date :- 5.7.2010
SKS