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2012 (5) TMI 152

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..... "ought to have been paid". The Petitioner challenges an order of assessment and seeks a mandamus to the State to recover from the vendor tax paid on goods of which a set off is claimed. Consequential orders of set off and refund are sought. Facts 3. The Petitioner which is a partnership firm and a dealer registered under the MVAT Act, 2002, carries on business as a reseller in cotton bales. For 200910, the Petitioner filed its returns and, based on the purchases effected by it, claimed Input Tax Credit (ITC) by way of a set off under Section 48. According to the Petitioner, the claim was supported by tax invoices of its vendor. On 4 December 2010, the Petitioner claimed a refund of Rs.21.08 lakhs, resulting from the return filed. The Petitioner claims to have submitted data, transactionwise, in relation to its supplier, including the invoice number, date of supply, the registration number of the supplier and VAT paid on each purchase. By a letter dated 25 July 2011, the Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax, Kolhapur informed the Petitioner of a list of dealers from whom the Petitioner had effected purchases where the data received was matched or, as the case may be, unmatched. The Pe .....

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..... ansparent. That will improve tax compliance and also augment revenue growth. Thus, to repeat, with the introduction of VAT, benefits will be as follows : * a set-off will be given for input tax as well as tax paid on previous purchases   * other taxes, such as turnover tax, surcharge, additional surcharge, etc. will be abolished * overall tax burden will be rationalised * prices will in general fall * there will be self-assessment by dealers * transparency will increase * there will be higher revenue growth" 5. Section 3 of the MVAT Act, 2002, provides for the incidence of the tax. Subsection (1) prescribes that every dealer, who before the appointed day holds a valid or effective certificate of registration or licence under any of the earlier laws or, is liable to pay sales tax thereunder whose turnover of sales or purchases has exceeded rupees five lakh or who was an importer whose turnover had exceeded rupees one lakh with effect from the appointed day, would be liable to pay tax. Under subsection (2) of Section 3, a dealer to whom subsection (1) does not apply and whose turnover of all sales made, during the year commencing on the appointed day or any subsequent ye .....

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..... contain a certification that the registration of the selling dealer under the MVAT Act, 2002 is in force on the date on which the sale of the goods specified in the tax invoice took place; that the transaction of sale has been effected by the selling dealer and shall be accounted for in the turnover of sales while filing the return and that the due tax, if any, payable on the sale has been paid or shall be paid. 7. The controversy in the case turns upon Section 48. Section 48 provides as follows : "48. Setoff, refund, etc. (1) The State Government may, by rules, provide that, ( a) in such circumstances and subject to such conditions and restrictions as may be specified in the rules, a setoff or refund of the whole or any part of the tax,( i) paid under any earlier law in respect of any earlier sales or purchases of goods treated as capital assets on the day immediately preceding the appointed day or of goods which are held in stock on the appointed day by a person who is a dealer liable to pay tax under this Act, be granted to such dealer; or (ii) paid in respect of any earlier sale or purchase of goods under this Act be granted to the purchaing dealer; or (iii) paid under .....

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..... under this Act or any earlier law is deferred or is deferrable under any Package Scheme of Incentives implemented by the State Government, then the tax shall be deemed to have been received in the Governnment Treasury for the purposes of this subsection. (6) Where at any time after the appointed day, a dealer becomes entitled to a refund whether under any earlier law or under this Act, then such refund shall first be applied against the amount payable, if any, under any earlier law or this Act and the balance amount, if any, shall be refunded to the dealer." The case of the Petitioner 8. The Petitioner has submitted before the Court that (i) The selling dealer collects tax on behalf of the purchasing dealer and only acts as an agent of the Government to collect tax on the sale consideration; (ii) Under Section 86 a registered dealer who sells goods has to issue to the purchaser a tax invoice containing inter alia the details of its registration certificate, description, quantity and the price of the goods sold and the amount of tax charged; no further requirement has been imposed on the purchasing dealer such as obtaining from the vendor a challan supporting the payment of tax .....

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..... ii) Section 48(5) casts a burden on the purchasing dealer which is impossible to perform since the Act and the Rules do not empower the purchasing dealer to seek any document from the vendor other than the tax invoices for the purchases made. Denying the purchaser of the benefit of a set off for the failure of the selling dealer to deposit the tax would be to impose a condition which is impossible to perform. Selling dealers are registered by the State and collect tax as agents for or on behalf of the State. The State has statutory powers to recover tax from a defaulting dealer by taking recourse to the coercive arm of the law, including by way of assessment, recovery, attachment and prosecution. If Section 48(5) contemplates the disallowance of ITC without the performance of the statutory duty imposed upon the State, it must be held to be unconstitutional; (iv) Section 48(5) would cast an unbearable burden on the purchasing dealer. Though he has paid tax to the vendor, if a set off is disallowed, he would be liable to pay the same amount to the Revenue once again together with interest and penalty which may result in a closure of business contrary to Articles 14 and 19(1)(g). 10 .....

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..... unreasonable and violative of Article 14; (iii) The provisions of the MVAT Act, 2002 have been enacted to provide a method of taxation which prevents a cascading effect. This in itself is in the public interest; (iv) As much as being the duty of a selling dealer to pay tax, it is the duty of the State to enforce the obligation of the selling dealer to pay tax into the Treasury. Though the purchasing dealer has paid the tax to the selling dealer, he is yet denied the benefit of a set off which is arbitrary; (v) The purpose of a Value Added Tax is to avoid a cascading effect and the tax is an indirect tax. The purchasing dealer does not factor the tax as a cost and what is passed on to the customer is the tax that is actually paid. Consequently, even if the immediate selling dealer has not paid tax, a set off would be available to the purchasing dealer against the tax paid in the earlier link in the chain. Submissions on behalf of the State 12. The Advocate General appearing on behalf of the State has urged the following submissions : i) Under Section 3 the incidence of tax is on the dealer. Every dealer is liable to pay sales tax on his transaction with the purchasing dealer; .....

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..... stion of reading down the provision would arise; (x) The power to enact tax legislation includes the power to enact provisions that would prevent the evasion of tax. In enacting the provisions of Section 48(5) the State legislature has introduced a provision that would ensure that the benefit of a set off is granted only where the tax was in the first instance paid into the Treasury. The intention at all material times has been that a set off should be allowed only where the tax has actually been paid into the Treasury. 13. Mr. E.P. Bharucha, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the Sales Tax Authorities, urged that while making a switch over from a single point levy to a multi point levy under the MVAT Act 2002, the State legislature has had to balance the twin requirements of preventing a cascading effect with the necessity of enforcing compliance. In the State of Maharashtra, the set off claimed is in the amount of Rs.54,000 Crores. There are 6.5 lac registered dealers in the State. After the enforcement of the MVAT Act, 2002, with effect from 1 April 2005, the State Government introduced efiling of returns. With the introduction of electronic returns, the operating s .....

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..... nal consumers. ● The tax is levied on a broad base (as opposed to e.g., excise duties that cover specific products),   ● In principle, business should not bear the burden of the tax itself since there are mechanisms in place that allow for a refund of the tax levied on intermediate transactions between firms. ● The system is based on tax collection in a staged process, with successive taxpayers entitled to deduct input tax on purchases and account for output tax on sales. Each business in the supply chain takes part in the process of controlling and collecting the tax, remitting the proportion of tax corresponding to its margin i.e. on the difference between the VAT paid out to supplies and the VAT charged to customers. In general, OECD countries with value added taxes impose the tax at all stages and normally allow immediate deduction of taxes on purchases by all but the final consumer. 15. The White Paper on a State level Value Add Tax published under the aegis of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on 17 January 2005 took note of the fact that in the existing structure of indirect taxation, the tax regime resulted in a cascading tax burd .....

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..... e primary liability to pay sales tax, so far as the State is concerned, is on the seller. Though sales tax legislation may permit the seller who is a registered dealer to collect the sales tax as a tax from the purchaser, that as the Supreme Court observed, does not do away with the primary liability of the seller to pay the sales tax. The Supreme Court also held that the registered dealer need not, if he so pleases or chooses, collect the tax from the purchaser and in some cases as a result of competitive conditions the dealer may find it profitable not to do so. Consequently as the Supreme Court held : "This also makes it clear that the sales tax need not be passed on to the purchasers and this fact does not alter the real nature of the tax which, by the express provisions of the law, is cast upon the seller. The buyer is under no liability to pay sales tax in addition to the agreed sale price unless the contract specifically provides otherwise." 18. A subsequent decision of the Constitution Bench in George Oakes (Private) Ltd. v. State of Madras, AIR 1962 SC 1037 held that when the seller passes on a tax and buyer agrees to pay the sales tax in addition to the price, "the tax .....

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..... he sale price is not includible in making the aggregate for the purpose of the turnover. In the decisions both of two Judge Benches of the Supreme Court in State of Punjab vs. Atul Fasteners Ltd. (2007) 7 VST 278 (SC)  and in Corporation Bank vs. Saraswati, (2009) 19 VST 84(SC) there are two sentences indicating that sales tax is collected by a dealer as an agent of the State. The position of the selling dealer was, however, not an issue which arose for consideration in either of the two cases and in any event, the two decisions cannot be regarded as laying down a principle contrary to the earlier decisions of the Constitution Benches noted above. 20. In Maharashtra, the definition of the expression 'sale price' contains an explanation to the effect that it shall not include tax paid or payable to a seller in respect of a sale. The point of importance is that under the MVAT Act, 2002 the State legislature is competent to levy a sales tax on every transaction involving a sale of goods by a dealer. In a multi point levy, a charge of tax on every transaction of the sale of goods by a dealer falls within the domain of the State legislature. Value Added Tax legislation however see .....

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..... en exempted from the whole of the sales tax or purchase tax. In such an event for the purposes of sub section (3) the rate of tax applicable is to be nil. When the sale or purchase is exempt from the payment of a part of the sales tax or the purchase tax, the rate of tax applicable is to be the rate at which the payment of tax is to be made by virtue of such exemption. 23. Sub section (5) is a provision which has been introduced for the removal of doubts and contains a legislative declaration to the effect that in no case would the amount of set off or refund on any purchase of goods exceed the amount of tax in respect of the same goods, actually paid, if any under the Act or any earlier law into the Government Treasury. Under the proviso to sub section (5), where the tax levied or leviable is deferred or is deferrable under a Package Scheme of Incentives implemented by the State Government, the tax shall be deemed to have been received in the Government Treasury for the purposes of the sub section. 24. Now in analysing the provisions of subsection (5) it would be necessary to advert to its salient features. The Section contains a declaration of a peremptory nature, evidenced fro .....

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..... ction 48. 26. Subsection (5) of Section 48 had a parallel in the erstwhile provisions of Subsection (3) of Section 42 of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959. The provision came to be introduced in the Act by a Validation Act of 1991.7 Section 42(3) as introduced provided that for the removal of doubt it was declared that in no case would the amount of drawback, set off or refund, exceed the amount of tax in respect of the same goods paid, if any, into the Government treasury. The Statement of objects and reasons accompanying the Bill referred to the fact that set offs are claimed on goods which form the subject matter of an exemption from the payment of the whole or part of the tax payable as notified. The Maharashtra Sales Tax Tribunal in a decision in the case of Century Plastics8 held that a set off should be granted at the rate mentioned in the Schedules without considering the effect of an exemption notification. The Statement of objects and reasons provided a rationale for the new provision: "The intention in granting set off was certainly that set off granted should have been out of the tax received. The Government would have now been faced with a queer situation where it would .....

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..... sale consideration. There is no independent right to a set off apart from Section 48. The entitlement to a set off is created by the taxing statute and the terms on which a set off is granted by the legislation must be strictly observed.   30. In Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Pvt. Ltd. vs. Commissioner of Sales Tax, (1992) 3 SCC 624 the Supreme Court while considering the provisions for the grant of a set off under Rule 41(9) of the Bombay Sales Tax Rules, 1959, explained the rationale for a set off as follows: "A manufacturing dealer like the appellant pays purchase tax when he purchases raw material and he is again obliged to pay the sales tax when he sells the goods manufactured by him out of the said raw material. Tax on both the transactions has the inevitable effect of increasing the price to the consumers besides adversely affecting the trade. It is for this reason that the aforesaid Rule enables the manufacturing dealer to claim set off of the tax paid by him on the purchase of raw materials from out of the tax payable by him on the sale of goods manufactured from out of the said raw material." The judgment of the Supreme Court enunciates that (i) The dealer has no legal .....

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..... chieved. If exemption is available on complying with certain conditions, the conditions have to be complied with. The mandatory requirements of those conditions must be obeyed or fulfilled exactly, though at times, some latitude can be shown, if there is a failure to comply with some requirements which are directory in nature, the noncompliance of which would not affect the essence or substance of the notification granting exemption." 32. In India Agencies vs. Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Bangalore, (2005) 2 SCC 129 a Bench of three Learned Judges of the Supreme Court emphasized that the provision under the State Rules for furnishing the original FormC in order to claim a concessional rate of tax under Section 8(1) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, is mandatory. Before the Supreme Court, it was urged by the assessee that there was no suggestion that there was anything wrong with the genuineness of the transaction in which case there was no basis to reject the claim for a concessional rate of tax. The Supreme Court observed that the condition on which the concession was granted was mandatory and a liberal view could not be taken merely on the ground that there was .....

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..... nsgressed constitutional boundaries.   35. The second reason for the judicial tradition is a precept which recognizes the need for expertise in matters of economic policy and fiscal legislation. These are matters where the legislature and the executive draw upon a resource of expert advice. Some times, as debates on several contemporary economic issues would indicate, even experts tend to differ. Differences between experts are foreshadowed by differences in conceptual thinking as much as by differences in ideology. When they exercise restraint in tax and economic matters, Judges only reiterate the conventional wisdom that policy making, ideology and the differences which arise out of conflicting interests in society are best left to be resolved by democratically accountable bodies. Democratically elected institutions are responsible for the consequences of their policy choices. The choices which have to be made between competing fiscal and economic policies are not neutral in terms of social impact. Those choices do affect social outcomes and the distribution of resources. In economic and fiscal matters, policy making involves an element of trial and error. Policies have to .....

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..... t possible for any legislature to anticipate as if by some divine prescience, distortions and abuses of its legislation which may be made by those subject to its provisions and to provide against such distortions and abuses. Indeed, howsoever great may be the care bestowed on its framing, it is difficult to conceive of a legislation which is not capable of being abused by perverted human ingenuity. The Court must therefore adjudge the constitutionality of such legislation by the generality of its provisions and not by its crudities or inequities or by the possibilities of abuse of any of its provisions. If any crudities, inequities or possibilities of abuse come to light, the legislature can always step in and enact suitable amendatory legislation. That is the essence of pragmatic approach which must guide and inspire the legislature in dealing with complex economic issues." In a classical statement of law, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in East India Tobacco Co. vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1962 SC 1733 observed that when a classification which is made by legislation is challenged as being discriminatory, it is for the person who assails the legislation to establis .....

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..... meaning employed by the legislature if such meaning is clear on the face of the statute. If the statutory provisions do not go far enough to relieve the hardship of the member, the remedy lies with the Legislature and not in the hands of the Court." There is no occasion for a Court to read down a statute which is constitutional. The rule of reading down is used for the limited purpose of making a particular provision workable and to bring it in harmony with other provisions of the statute. However, in the garb of reading down a provision, it would not be open to the Court to read into it words and expressions not found in the statute. (Union of India vs. IND Swift Laboratories Ltd.). 2011 (265) E.L.T. 3 (SC) 39. Section 48(5) uses the expression "actually paid" into the government treasury. The words "actually paid" must receive their ordinary and natural meaning. A set off under Section 48(5) would be allowable only to the extent of the tax, if any, that has been actually paid into the treasury in respect of the purchase tax paid on the same goods. The use of the word "actually" in conjunction with the word "paid" leaves no manner of doubt about the legislative intent. A set off .....

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..... should have been actually paid was accepted, then in a case where no duty has been levied, the Department would not be able to take any action under Rule 10. Therefore, in that context, the Supreme Court held that the proper interpretation to be placed to the expression "paid" is "ought to have been paid". 41. In Sulekh Ram and Sons vs. Union of India, 1978 (2) ELT (J525) (Del) a Single Judge of the Delhi High Court considered a Central Excise exemption notification which exempted from the payment of excise duty iron and steel products falling under subitem 1(a) of Item 26AA of the First Schedule to the Central Excise Act made from rerollable scrap on which appropriate amount of excise duty has already been paid. The Petitioner purchased untested rails from Hindustan Steel Limited. The excise authority issued a notice of demand on the Petitioner on the ground that the duty had not been paid. The Delhi High Court held that the purchaser of the goods from the manufacturer was entitled to rely upon the excise system and to presume that duty had already been recovered from the manufacturer, since he would have no means of knowing whether excise duty had already been paid by the manufa .....

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..... ure can impose conditions and that imposed in Section 48(5) is not lacking in rationality. Moreover, the scheme for set off in Section 48 has to be read in its entirety and as one cohesive whole. The legislature cannot be compelled to grant a set off, ignoring the conditions which it imposes. The conditions are not severable and are part of one integrated scheme. 43. Under Section 48(1), the State Government is by rules, empowered to provide for the grant of a set off or refund of the whole or any part of the tax paid in respect of any earlier sale or purchase of goods under the Act to the purchasing dealer. Under subsection (2), a set off or refund cannot be granted to a dealer in respect of a purchase made from the registered dealer unless the claimant produces a tax invoice containing a certificate that the registration certificate of the selling dealer was in force on the date of sale by him and the due tax, if any, payable on the sale has been or shall be paid and unless the certificate is signed by the selling dealer or by an authorised representative. Subsection (2) of Section 48 allows a facility to a registered dealer to claim a set off on the basis of a tax invoice conta .....

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..... ered dealer and that the goods purchased are specified in a certificate. Once these two matters were duly satisfied, the selling dealer was under no further obligation to oversee the application of the goods for the purpose for which it was represented that the goods were intended to be used. The Supreme Court held as follows : "If the purchasing dealer misapplies the goods he incurs a penalty under section 10. That penalty is incurred by the purchasing dealer and cannot be visited upon the selling dealer. The selling dealer is under the Act authorised to collect from the purchasing dealer the amount payable by him as tax on the transaction, and he can collect that amount only in the light of the declaration mentioned in the certificate in Form 'C'. He cannot hold an enquiry whether the notified authority who issued the certificate of registration acted properly, or ascertain whether the purchaser, notwithstanding the declaration, was likely to use the goods for a purpose other than the purpose mentioned in the certificate in Form 'C'. There is nothing in the Act or the Rules that for infraction of the law committed by the purchasing dealer by misapplication of the goods after he .....

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..... rt held that the purchasing dealer was entitled in law to rely upon the certificate of registration of the selling dealer and the retrospective cancellation of the registration certificate of the selling dealer would have no effect upon any person who had acted upon the strength of a registration certificate when the registration was current. Suresh Trading holds that the retrospective cancellation of a registration certificate does not affect transactions carried out during its validity, on the strength of the certificate. In ITC Ltd. vs. Commissioner of Central Excise, 2004(171) E.L.T. 433 (SC) the Supreme Court has dealt with declarations which are required to be furnished under diverse statutes, thus : ".. declarations required under diverse statutes have different characteristics and consequences depending upon the nature of the declaration. A declaration may be (1) an assurance of an existing state of affairs or (2) an assurance of a future course of conduct by the declarant himself or (3) a statement of required conduct by a third party. In the first two kinds of declarations the onus is on the declarant to make good the declaration. In other words the truth of the declarat .....

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..... ver, the decision in Elphinston Spinning which construed the word "paid" in Rule 10 of the Central Excise Rules involved an issue of short levy. Finally we may note that a provision such as Section 48(5) which uses clear and express words such as that in "no case" shall a set off exceed the tax "actually paid" in the government treasury did not fall for consideration. 49. The State Government has placed before the Court, both on affidavit and during the course of the hearing, the steps which it shall pursue against a selling dealer who, having collected tax from the purchasing dealer does not deposit the tax into the Government Treasury. The Value Added Tax in the State of Maharashtra was introduced with effect from 1 April 2005 under the MVAT Act, 2002. The Act replaces a single point levy of tax under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959 for a multi point levy of tax. Under the MVAT Act, 2002, VAT is levied at every stage. A set off or input credit of tax paid on purchase is granted to the claimant dealer. This resulted in an increase in the number of dealers claiming input credit. The Revenue has disclosed that for financial year 201011, the claim on account of input credit was Rs.54 .....

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..... itiated under Section 61(2). The Court has been informed that if in any of the above three situations, a default is made good by the supplying dealer (vendor), input tax credit to that extent of the default which has been made good, shall be allowed to the claimant dealer either in appeal or by way of assessment and/or review. 50. The regime of electronic filing generates data pertaining to a web of complex transactions. The system of tax collection, assessment and refunds can move towards a more objective and transparent process with the deployment of electronic and digitised processes. The system is capable of providing transparent and accountable governance for the tax payer. It allows authorities to investigate transactions which in the manual processes followed in an earlier era would have been difficult or complex. Electronic filing of returns, payments and audited statements would enable a matching process to be carried out between the input credit claimed by way of a set off and the tax which has been deposited by the selling vendor. During the course of the hearing of these proceedings, the Court has been informed that corrective action shall be taken to allow an addition .....

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..... option of denying a set off and of pursuing all selling dealers in the chain until recovery is ultimately made from any one of them. 3) The full machinery of the Act will be invoked by the Sales Tax Department wherever possible against Defaulters with a view to recover the amount of tax due from them, notwithstanding the above. Once there is final recovery (after exhaustion of all legal proceedings) from the Defaulter, in whole or part, a refund will be given (after the end of that financial year) to the dealer(s) claiming set off to the extent of the recovery. This refund will be made pro rata if there is more than one dealer who was denied set off; 4) Refund will be given by the Sales Tax Department even without any refund application having been filed by the dealers, since the Sales Tax Department will reconcile the payments, inform the dealer of the recovery from the Defaulter concerned and grant the refund; 5) Details of Defaulters will be uploaded on the website of the Sales Tax Department and dealers denied set off will also be given the names of the concerned Defaulter(s); 6) The above does not apply to transactions by dealers where the certificate/invoice issued is no .....

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..... can be obtained. If the legislature, as in the present case, prescribes that a set off should be granted only to the extent to which tax has been deposited in the treasury on the purchase of goods, it is within a reasonable exercise of its legislative power in so mandating. This does not offend Article 14. A plea of hardship cannot result in the invalidation of a statutory provision in a fiscal enactment which is otherwise lawful. At the same time, we have set out in detail the assurance which has been placed before the Court by the State Revenue in the present case of the steps that would be taken to pursue recoveries against selling dealers who have either not filed returns or, having filed returns have not deposited the tax collected from the purchasing dealer in whole or in part. 54. For the reasons indicated earlier, we do not find any merit in the challenge to the provisions of Section 48(5) of the MVAT Act, 2002. We decline to accede to the prayer for reading down the provisions of Section 48(5). The order of assessment is subject to the remedy of an appeal in the course of which it would be open to the Petitioner to pursue the remedy available in law. As regards the recov .....

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