Whether the petitioner, carrying on a quarry and crusher unit, be permitted to withdraw from the compounding applied for in the year 2016-17, for reason of failure to obtain licenses from the local authority, to carry on the quarry and crusher operations, is the question raised herein.

2. I have heard learned Senior Counsel Sri. K. Jayakumar, appearing for the petitioner and Sri. C.E. Unnikrishnan, learned Special Government Pleader (Taxes) for the respondent Panchayath.

3. The learned Senior Counsel would accept the position that the Hon'ble Supreme Court has consistently declared that a provision for compounding is a contract between the assessee and the Department; from which both cannot be allowed to withdraw. The learned Senior Counsel however would urge that the option for paying tax at the compounded rate having been exercised and the same being deemed to be a concluded contract, necessarily all the trappings of a contract would ensue and in such circumstance, the assessee; under Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (for brevity 'the Contract Act') could be absolved from the liability, flowing from the contract, on the ground of the obligation being impossible