The compliance with a court's direction to pass an appropriate order does not constitute contempt, and the validity of an order made by a statutory authority cannot be agitated in disposed of proceedings.

( 1 ) THE following two precise questions arise for consideration before us :-

(I) When the Court directs a statutory authority to pass an appropriate order on a pending application, does the authority concerned commit contempt if the order that it passes is, according to the party aggrieved of the same, legally erroneous? (ii) What is the remedy available to a party aggrieved of any such order. In particular, can the validity of the order be assailed by it by way of a miscellaneous application filed in the proceedings in which the direction for disposal was issued?

( 2 ) THE questions arise in the following factual backdrop :-

( 3 ) THE petitioner is a joint venture constituted to undertake the construction of metro corridor between Central Secretariat to ISBT Kashmere gate awarded to it by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The joint venture is registered under the Delhi Sales Tax on Works Contract Act, 1999. It was for the year 2001-02 assessed under Section 16 of the Act aforementioned in terms of an order dated 31st March, 2003. The assessment order held the petitioner entitled to a refund of over rs. 6 crores which had been deducted at source on the mobilisation and other advances made to it. The petitioner made an application seeking refund of the said amount. According to the petitioner, the application remained unattended for sometime and was eventually rejected by the assessing authority in terms of its order dated 14th August, 2003. The petitioner s further case is that the assessing authority started making various queries about the refund ostensibly with a view to correcting an alleged error in the order of assessment. The authority with that objective appears to have initiated re-assessment proceedings on 4th September, 2003. Aggrieved, the petitioner challenged not only the initiation of the re-assessment proceedings but also the rejection of its application for the grant of refund in this Court in Writ Petition No. 869/2004. The relief prayed for in the said petition was in the following words :-

A) direct the respondents to restore the refund application and issue the refund along with interest without any further delay; b) nullify the re-assessment proceedings by vacating the notice for re-assessment issued on erroneous basis and meant for blocking the refund and frustrating the claim of interest; c) pass any other order as this Hon ble Court may deem fit in the interest of justice and in favor of the petitioner.

( 4 ) THE petition was opposed by the respondents on several grounds including the ground that the re-assessment proceedings had been completed and the petitioner knew about the re-assessment order dated 15th january, 2004 passed by the assessing officer whereunder the dealer was directed to deposit a further sum of rs. 2,73,18,162/ -. The counter affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents inter alia stated that since a final order of re-assessment had already been made, the petitioner s remedy lay in an appeal before the prescribed Appellate Authority and not in the writ jurisdiction of this court. Reliance in support of that submission was placed upon the decisions of the Supreme court in A. V. Venkateswaran, Collector of Customs, Bombay vs. Ramchand Sobhraj Wadhwani and Anr. , AIR 1961 SC 1506 and Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. and Anr. Vs. State of orissa and Anr. , 1983 (53) STC 315.

( 5 ) THE writ petition was eventually heard and disposed of by a Division Bench of this Court in terms of its order dated 20th July, 2004. A reading of the said order makes it manifest that this Court found the rejection of the application for refund to be unjustified and accordingly quashed the same. The Court went a step further and quashed even the re-assessment proceedings and remitted the matter to the Commissioner to pass appropriate orders on the refund application keeping in view the mandate of Section 30 of the Delhi Sales Tax Act which applies mutatis mutandis to proceedings under the Delhi S