Failure to participate in the opportunity of personal hearing can lead to the passing of assessment orders, and the court may uphold the direction to file a statutory appeal before the Appellate Authority.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Appeal filed under Clause 15 of Letters Patent praying to set aside the order made in W.P. No. 25394 of 2021 dated 30.11.2021.)

R. Mahadevan, J.

1. The appellant has come forward with this intra-court appeal questioning the validity and correctness of the order dated 30.11.2021 passed by the learned Judge dismissing the writ petition No. 25394 of 2021 filed by them with liberty to work out their remedy before the Appellate Authority by filing an appeal.

2. The appellant company is a registered dealer under the erstwhile Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 and engaged in the business of man power supply by entering into labour contracts with Neyveli Lignite Corporation and its associated enterprises. According to the appellant, they have duly filed the monthly returns in Form-I for the years 2013-14 and 2014- 15. While so, their business premises was inspected by the Enforcement Wing of the Commercial Taxes Department on 20.10.2015 and 30.09.2016 and found certain discrepancies. According to the appellant, such discrepancies noticed by the enforcement wing officials are nothing but inadvertent errors committed by the appellant while maintaining the books of accounts. However, the Assessing Officer determined the difference in the deemed sale value for the year 2013-14 a sum of Rs.50,05,625 and for the year 2014-15 a sum of Rs.39,62,905/-, based on which demand for payment of tax of Rs.5,82,810/- and Rs.2,35,793/- respectively was raised. Aggrieved by the same, the appellant filed a revised return and duly paid the tax as demanded. However, on 06.10.2017 a show cause notice was issued, proposing to demand tax on the ground of alleged purchase suppression as per the details available in the departmental website for the years 2013-14 and 2014-15. The appellant replied to the said notice on 10.11.2017 and thereafter, no further action has been taken till 13.07.2021. While so, after lapse of more than three years, another show cause notice dated 13.07.2021 was issued on the same ground and thereafter, the assessment orders were passed on 09.08.2021.

3. It is the further case of the appellant that there was mismatch between details furnished by them and the details available in the departmental website. But the assessing officer, without conducting any enquiry, passed the orders of assessment on 09.08.2021. Therefore, challenging the assessment orders dated 09.08.2021, the appellant filed W.P. Nos. 25393 and 25394 of 2021 before this Court. However, the learned Judge, without adverting to the merits of the averments raised by the appellant in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petitions, dismissed the writ petitions on 30.11.2021 by granting liberty to the appellant to workout their remedy before the Appellate Commissioner by way of an appeal within a period of thirty days and directed the Appellate Commissioner to dispose of the same within a period of three months thereafter. As against the order dated 30.11.2021 passed in WP No. 25394 of 2021, the appellant is before this court with this writ appeal.

4. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the appellant that the assessment orders suffer from patent illegalities and they were passed without jurisdiction. When the jurisdiction of the respondent was questioned, the learned Judge ought to have considered the writ petition on merits, but without doing so, dismissed the same on the sole ground that the appellant has not submitted their reply to the second show cause notice. He would further submit that in the case of M/s. WABCO India Limited vs The Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax in W.A.No.884 of 2018 this Court has held as follows;

....where the jurisdiction of the respondent to issue the impugned show cause notice was under challenge, in our considered view, the writ petition ought not to have been dismissed on the ground that the appellant had a right to reply to the show cause notice. The learned Single Bench ought to have examined whether t