The main legal point established in the judgment is that under the Gujarat Stamp Act, stamp duty is leviable only upon the face value of a share and cannot be levied on the premium price of the share on the date of amalgamation.

JUDGMENT :

A.J.DESAI, J.

1. By way of present appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent, the original petitioner has challenged CAV Judgment dated 20.12.2019 passed by the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Application No.14597 of 2019, by which the challenge to two orders dated 13.7.2018 passed by the Collector & Deputy Superintendent of Stamps as well as an order dated 29.6.2019 passed by respondent No.1 Appellate Authority, by which the respondent authority held that the petitioners would be liable to pay stamp duty on the price of share on the date of amalgamation treating the face value of the share including the premium price of the share decided by the companies who sought amalgamation, came to be dismissed.

2. The appeal came to be admitted by the Coordinate Bench of this Court and the implementation of the impugned judgment came to be stayed.

3. Several writ petitions were filed involving the same issue before the learned Single Judge and were pending for hearing. The Division Bench, therefore, directed to tag all the writ petitions along with the present appeal and accordingly the group of matters have been finally decided today.

4. At the outset, Mr. Saurabh Soparkar, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the appellant has placed the Common CAV Judgment dated 10.2.2023 passed by the Full Bench of this Court (Coram: Hon’ble the Chief Justice Mr. Aravind Kumar, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ashutosh Shastri and Hon’ble Ms. Justice Nisha M. Thakore) in Stamp Reference No.1 of 2020 and allied references and would submit that the issue involved in the present group of matters have already been settled against the State authority and has held that the stamp duty would be levied only upon face value of a share and cannot be levied on premium price of the share on the date of amalgamation. He has taken us to the judgments and discussion about the issues decided by the Full Bench of this Court. By taking us through paragraphs 87 and 91, he would submit that the case in each matter including the writ petitions is squarely covered and, therefore, the appeal is required to be allowed and the judgment passed by the learned Single Judge is required to be quashed and set aside, whereas the writ petitions which are tagged with the present appeal are required to be allowed and the order passed by the authority asking the petitioner to pay the stamp duty treating the share price including the premium as a face value is required to be quashed and set aside and if any amount is paid towards demand shall be refunded.

5. On the other hand, Mr. Chintan Dave, learned AGP appearing for the State tried to argued the matter and opposed the grant of relief. However, as submitted by Mr. Dave, the issue involved in the group of matters is already answered.

6. We have heard learned advocates appearing for the respective parties.

7. The issue involved in the group of matters is whether to levy stamp duty on the price of the share on the date of amalgamation of the companies and what would be the face value of a share upon which the stamp duty is required to be paid.

8. The said levy of stamp is covered under Explanation-III (c) of Article 20 of Schedule-I of the Gujarat Stamp Act. Article 20 is reproduced hereinbelow: