STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. ESSAR STEEL LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India have been preferred by the petitioner - State of Gujarat through the Commissioner of Commercial Tax, challenging the common orders dated 23.07.2015 and 14.10.2015 in Miscellaneous Application No. 74 of 2015 and common order dated 14.10.2015 passed in Rectification Application No. 55 of 2015 passed by the Gujarat Value Added Tax Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as "the Tribunal").

(2.) Since all the petitions are directed against common orders of the Tribunal and the parties as well as the facts of the case are common, the same were taken up for hearing together and are decided by this common judgment.

(3.) The respondent - M/s. Essar Steel Limited is a Public Limited Company, which was granted the benefit of exemption under an Incentive Scheme framed under section 49(2) of the Gujarat Sales Tax Act, 1969 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"). The company manufactured Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) in its pioneer unit (Unit I) and carried out commercial production of Hot Rolled Coils (HRC) at another of its units (Unit II). Various demand notices came to be issued to the respondent in the year 2005, which came to be challenged by it before this court by way of writ petitions being Special Civil application No. 14422 of 2005 and allied matters. Subsequently in July 2005, by separate orders passed in relation to Unit I and Unit II, the demand of sales tax came to be confirmed and penalty of 150% came to be levied by the Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax. Notices seeking to impose penalty also came to be issued by the Commissioner of Sales Tax to Units I and II in revision proceedings, which were also challenged before this court by way of writ petitions. Vide orders dated 22.07.2005 issued under section 67 of the Act, the Commissioner of Sales Tax revised the assessment orders for the relevant years and also imposed penalty at the rate of 150%. All the above orders were subject matter of challenge before this court in different writ petitions. By a common order dated 28.02006 passed in Special Civil Application No. 14422 of 2005 and allied matters, the court, after discussing the merits of the case, was of the view that the petitioner Company (respondent herein) had not only made out a strong case for waiver of penalty and interest, but had also made out a strong case for exemption from deposit of the tax amount till final disposal of the appeals/revisions filed by the petitioner Company in respect of Unit I. As regards Unit II, the court was inclined to direct the petitioner company to make pre-deposit of 50% of only the tax amount without making pre-deposit of any interest or penalty. The court, accordingly, issued certain directions which shall be referred to at an appropriate stage.