09.09.2025 Item No.14

Ct. No.01

RP

MAT 1504 of 2025

+

IA No.CAN 1 of 2025

Nikita Agarwal

VS

The Assistant Commissioner of Revenue

Commercial Taxes and State Tax,

Jorasanko Charge & Ors.

With

WPA 8144 of 2025

Nikita Agarwal

VS

The Assistant Commissioner of Revenue

Commercial Taxes and State Tax,

Jorasanko Charge & Ors.

Mr. Ankit Kanodia

Ms. Megha Agarwal Mr. Piyush Khaitan

Ms. Tulika Roy

….For the Appellant

Mr. Saptak Sanyal

…For State

1. This intra-Court appeal filed by the appellant is

directed against the order dated 16.07.2025 passed in WPA 8144 of 2025. By the said order the learned Single Bench did not grant any interim order in favour of the appellant but directed affidavits to be filed. The appellant being aggrieved by such order has preferred this intra-Court appeal. Since the appeal as well as the writ petition lie in a very narrow compass, with the consent of either side of the parties, the writ petition as well as the appeal are taken up for disposal by this common judgment and

order and for such purpose the writ petition is treated as on day’s list.

2. The appellant challenged the order passed by the Appellate Authority, namely, the Senior Joint Commissioner of WBGST, Kolkata North & 24 Parganas Circle dated 30th May, 2023 by which the appeal was dismissed affirming the order of cancellation of the appellant’s registration with retrospective effect. Learned Single Bench opined that the writ petitioner has approached the Court after a period of two years after the order was passed by the Appellate Authority. The explanation offered by the appellant is that since the Tribunal was to be constituted the appellant had awaited for constitution of Tribunal but as a consequence of rejection of the appeal the appellant’s customers received the notice during March 2025 proposing to recover tax on the ground that the appellant’s registration has been cancelled retrospectively which prompted the appellant to approach the writ Court. In our view the explanation offered appears to be reasonable and the writ petitioner cannot be thrown out on the ground of laches and delay. Moreover, when the Appellate Tribunal is yet to be constituted.

3. For the purpose of disposal of the appeal and the writ petition disputed questions of facts of the case need not be gone into and the documents are required to be perused. The authority, namely, the Assistant Commissioner issued show cause notice to the appellant on 24.03.2022 for cancellation of registration of the appellant on the ground that registration obtained by means of fraud, willful misstatement or suppression of facts. The license was suspended with effect from the said date. Show cause notice was issued on 23.05.2022 and the appellant was directed to appear before the authority on 30th May, 2022. Since no reply was submitted by the appellant, the authority, namely the Assistant Commissioner, by order dated 5.4.2022 cancelled the registration with retrospective effect i.e. 9.5.2019. The appellant filed an application for revocation of the order of retrospective cancellation of the registration. Show cause notice was issued on the said application on 2.5.2022. The application was rejected stating that the reply to the show cause notice has not been filed within the time permitted. The case of the appellant is that she appeared before the authority and sought for adjournment. A letter was also given but without adjourning the matter and without considering the request for adjournment the application was rejected. Having left with no other alternative, an appeal was preferred before the Appellate Authority. The appeal was dismissed by order dated 30.05.2023 and on going through the appellate order we find that for the first time the appellant has made known about the allegations levelled against her by the department. At no earlier point of time the appellant was put on notice about such allegations. In fact, the appellate authority has noted the documents filed by the appellant but has stated that the documents