1. Since common question of fact and law is involved in these three writ petitions, they were heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.

2. M/s Tata Tele-services Limited, the petitioner herein, which is a public limited company incorporated under the provisions of the Indian Companies Act, 1956 involved in the activity of providing telecommunication services to the consumers under the license granted by the Department of Telecommunication, has invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India calling in question the order of reassessment Annexure P-8 dated 26-12-2016 under Section 22(1) of the Chhattisgarh Valued Added Tax Act, 2005 (for short, 'the VAT Act').

3. The short question of law involved in the batch of writ petitions is, whether in absence of any assessment order passed in the original proceeding under Section 21(7) of the VAT Act, the assessing officer has power and jurisdiction to reassess the said deemed reassessment by resorting to reassessment proceeding under Section 22(1) of the VAT Act and further the consequential question would be, whether in that case, the assessing officer is justified in levying penalty under Section 22(2) of the VAT Act.

4. To unlock the questions so posed for consideration, the essential facts need to be noticed herein.

5. The petitioner herein being the registered dealer under the VAT Act submitted its return for the years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 in accordance with the provisions of the said Act and also submitted audit report and statutory compliances along with list of purchases as required. The original assessment proceedings were initiated by issuance of notice on 12-5-2014 and thereafter the matter was heard on 15-1-2015, 16-1-2015, 19-1-2015, 28-1-2015 and 18-2-2015. It is the case of the petitioner that no order of assessment was passed on the said original assessment proceedings in accordance with Section 21(7) of the VAT Act. It is the further case of the petitioner that in accordance with the instructions dated 5-7-2013, the Commercial Tax Officer (Enforcement) prepared report for the years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 in case of the petitioner and proposed to levy tax of 4% of the materials treating them as “telecommunication cables and accessories” and accepting the report of the said officer, the assessing authority issued notices on 30-6-2016 to the petitioner for the period 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 for reassessment which was opposed by the petitioner by filing preliminary objection on 12-8-2016 that the reassessment proceeding initiated is barred by limitation, but no cognizance of that objection was taken. The said objection was not considered and the order of reassessment Annexure P-8 was passed in all the three proceedings leading to filing of these writ petitions principally on the ground that no order of assessment was passed on the original assessment proceedings though the hearing concluded on 18-2- 2015 and therefore that will be a case of deemed assessment under Section 21(2) of the VAT Act and deemed assessment can be reassessed only under the provisions contained in Section 21(3) of the VAT Act and Section 22(1) would not attract as there is no assessment order in force, therefore, the proceeding initiated and order of reassessment are without jurisdiction and without authority of law.

6. Return has been filed opposing the writ petitions and clearly stating that the order of reassessment passed by the assessing officer/Commercial Tax Officer is appealable under Section 48 of the VAT Act and to avoid the mandatory deposit required for appeal, the writ petitions have directly been filed which are not maintainable. Since no original assessment proceeding had taken place, there is deemed assessment by virtue of the operation of law under Section 21(2) of the VAT Act, therefore, that has rightly been reassessed under Section 22(1) and penalty has rightly been imposed.

7. Rejoinder has been filed c