The Jharkhand High Court directed that any amount paid by mistake or through ignorance of repeal Act deserves to be refunded.
The petitioner, M/s. WS Retail Services Private Limited claimed the refund of Rs. 61,74,899/- deposited between the period December, 2014 to August, 2015 by the petitioner before the Respondent, Commercial Taxes Department, was declined on the ground that the application for refund was not maintainable.
The Commercial Taxes Tribunal upheld the order of rejection by the impugned order holding that in absence of any statutory provision under JVAT Act the learned JCCT had no jurisdiction to allow the refund application of the petitioner.
Mr. Gulati, Learned senior counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is engaged in the business of selling goods through the portal, www.flipkart.com, to end customers, for their personal use. Petitioner is not registered under the Jharkhand Value Added Tax Act, 2005. Petitioner has not been assessed to tax under the JVAT Act. No demand notice was raised against the petitioner.
The Petitioner has paid Central Sales Tax to the tune of Rs. 58,05,157 in the State of Origin on goods being transported by it to Dhanbad Circle to be delivered to Customers. This amount of Rs. 61,74,899 was collected on the very same goods. That there was a single transaction of sale on which CST had been paid in the State, where the movement of the goods commenced.
The division bench of Justices Aparesh Kumar Singh and Anubha Rawat Choudhary opined that the order of rejection of claim of refund by respondent authority and the order of Commercial Taxes Tribunal upholding the same cannot be sustained in the eye of law. Accordingly, they are set aside.
The Court remitted the matter to the Joint Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Admin), Ranchi to consider the claim of refund of the petitioner in accordance with law within a period of six weeks.
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