A Single Bench of the Kerala High Court stayed Value Added Tax (VAT) recovery proceedings till disposal of pending appeal before the Kerala VAT Tribunal.
Senior Government Pleader Rekha P Nair represented the State and Advocates Harisankar V Menon, Meera V. Menon, R. Sreejith, K. Krishna and Parvathy Menon represented the petitioner.
An appeal was filed and a stay petition was also moved before the 2nd respondent. The stay was granted by the Appellate Authority on condition the petitioner deposits 30% of the disputed amount of tax and on furnishing a simple bond for the balance amount within one month, which the petitioner has complied with.
After six months, The petitioner had filed another petition to extend the interim order already granted by this Court.
The counsel for the petitioner submitted in the earlier case that the petition filed by the petitioner before the Kerala VAT Tribunal was not acted upon by the Tribunal and it is awaiting orders and if orders are not passed within a time limit, the petitioner would be put to irreparable injury and loss.
By judgment dated 13.11.2023, the Kerala Value added Tax Appellate Tribunal, Kozhikode was directed to take up Ext.P9 and pass appropriate order within a period of three weeks from 13th November, 2023.
The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the recovery proceedings were not stayed until orders were passed.
Pointing out this, the review petition was filed by the petitioner.
The Bench of Justice Basant Balaji held that, “Taking note of the fact that the recovery proceedings are now sought to be imposed against the petitioner, this review petition is allowed, and the judgment dated 13.11.2023 is modified to the extent of staying all recovery proceedings until orders on Ext.P9 are passed by the Tribunal.”
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