JUDGMENT :

(Deepak Roshan, J.)

W.P.(T) No. 3944 of 2022 (Assessment Year 2009-10) has been preferred by the petitioner for setting aside of the order dated 28.05.2022 (Annexure-9) passed by the Joint Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Jamshedpur Division, whereby the Tax authority has rejected the refund of the petitioner to the tune of Rs.56,86,616/- on two grounds; firstly, the refund application has been filed with delay and secondly, there being alleged outstanding dues of the petitioner. Similarly, W.P.(T) No. 3911 of 2022 (Assessment Year 2012-13) has been preferred for setting aside the order dated 28.5.2022 (Annexure-6) passed by the Tax Authority, whereby refund application of the petitioner to the tune of Rs. 19,09,596/- has been rejected on same and similar grounds. Since the issues are common, as such both these applications are being heard together and disposed of by this common judgment. For brevity, relevant facts have been taken from W.P.(T) No. 3944 of 2022.

2. An assessment order was passed on 01.04.2014 determining Rs. 35,06,253/- as the Tax payable by the petitioner. An excess demand Notice for the period 2009-10 was issued on 02.09.2014 to the petitioner in Form JVAT-300 indicating Rs.56,86,616/- as the excess amount paid by the petitioner, after taking into account the Tax paid by the petitioner and the TDS amount. Refund application has been made by the petitioner on 07.03.2015 in Form JVAT-206. It is the case of the petitioner that at the time of filing of refund application, no amount was due to be paid by the petitioner to the department. Reminder was given by the petitioner to process its refund Application.

Subsequently, one letter was sent on 15.07.2019 by the Treasury Officer to the Commercial Taxes Office of Jharkhand Division indicating the Tax deposited by the petitioner. As a matter of fact, this letter was in response to a letter issued by the Commercial Taxes Department which shows that proceedings in respect of the refund was ongoing at the time of issuance of these correspondences.

On 20.02.2020, petitioner was asked to file an online refund application which it duly did. On 31.05.2022, the petitioner received an e-mail indicating that its refund application has been rejected. Thereafter, petitioner applied for the entire order sheet of the Refund proceedings, which was supplied to the petitioner indicating therein that the proceedings has been recorded only from 04.01.2021 onwards. Literally, there was no mention of any proceedings prior to this date even though the refund application was filed nearly seven years back.

On 28.05.2022, the JC (Admin) passed an order rejecting the Refund Application of the petitioner on the ground that the refund application had been filed beyond the period of limitation as provided in Rule 19(2)(a) of the JVAT Rules and certain tax liabilities were also outstanding for the year 2016-17 and 2017-18. Finally, on 30.05.2022 JC (Admin) wrote to the DCCT Jamshedpur Circle, Jamshedpur, informing him of his decision.

Thereafter, on 23.06.2022 VAT & CST dues for the period 2016-17 and CST dues for the period 2017-18 had been stayed by the Appellate Court and on 14.11.2022, CST dues for the period 2016-17 and 2017-18 have been set aside by the appellate court and the case was remanded to the Assessing Officer.

Constrained by the action of the respondent- Department, whereby they have rejected the refund claim application for both the period, i.e., 2009-10 and 2012-13, the petitioner approached this court by filing the aforesaid writ applications.

3. The respondents have also filed counter affidavit in the case but have not been able to either give explanation for the delay in processing the refund application; neither have they disputed the fact that the petitioner has paid an amount in excess.

The respondents have also pursuant to the order dated 07.09.2022 filed a supplementary affidavit allegedly bringing on record of the proceedings pursuant to which the applicat