Atlas Gold Township received respite when the Kerala High Court (HC) division bench, headed over by Justices A K Jayashankaran Nambiar and Viju Abraham, ordered officials to issue new assessment orders.
The court decided that the authorities had seriously violated the natural justice standards in their treatment of the group. As a result, officials were ordered to issue new orders after following the rules of natural justice.
To enable the Assessing Authority to do so, the bench directed the appellant to appear for a personal hearing before the assessing authority on 17.04.2023.
An essential defence against arbitrary and unfair decision-making is the natural justice principle. They aid in ensuring that decisions are made in accordance with established policies and processes and that all parties are treated equally.
The appellant filed the Writ Petition impugning ex-parte assessment orders passed under the Kerala Value Added Tax Act (KVAT Act) for the assessment years 2013-2014 to 2016-2017.
Further, while the assessment orders were passed without affording a reasonable opportunity to the appellant company, the appellant chose to challenge the said assessment orders not only on the ground of violation of the principles of natural justice but also on the larger question as to whether the provisions of the KVAT Act would apply to sustain the assessment in view of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, which had introduced a new regime of tax on the supply of goods and services.
However, the validity of the assessment orders in the wake of the constitutional amendment was not filed before the High Court in the writ petition.
The bench noted the submission of the appellant that a judgment of another Single Judge pertaining to a sister company where the learned Judge had considered the argument as regards an ex-parte assessment done against the assessee in that case and had set aside the said assessment and remitted the matter back to the assessing authority for a fresh consideration on merits after finding that the earlier assessment was vitiated by a non-compliance with the rules of natural justice.
As a result, the appellant filed a Review Petition before the Single Judge, highlighting the series of events that resulted in the quashing of the assessment orders pertaining to the appellant’s sister company and requesting a similar ruling with regard to the assessment orders that were challenged in the Writ Petition. Nonetheless, the Single Judge dismissed the Review Petition because she saw no justification for revisiting her earlier decision in the Writ Petition.
The bench noted that the appellant’s current limited request is for a directive akin to the sister company’s, which saw another learned Single Judge overturn the challenged assessment orders that were made without consulting the assessee and order the Assessing Officer to conduct a new assessment within a specific time frame.
The division bench decided to set aside the judgment of the single judge in the writ petition,as also the order in the Review Petition, to the limited extent that it does not set aside the assessment orders impugned in the Writ Petition.
The bench directed the assessing authority to pass fresh orders of assessment in relation to the appellant for the assessment years 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015- 2016, 2016-2017, respectively, within a period of three months from the date of receipt of a copy of the judgment.
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