The Madras High Court held that writ petition is not maintainable as Statutory Alternative Remedy under Income Tax Act.
The writ petitioner, Tvl.Sree Karumariamman Granites which is a registered partnership firm, is carrying on business in quarrying and marketing granites. The Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN), which is a Government company invited tenders for raising-cum-selling granites blocks for quarries situate at Sivanthipuram in Ambasamudram Taluk, Tirunelveli District, writ petitioner was the highest bidder, an agreement was entered into and the writ petitioner was awarded the contract by TAMIN. Thereafter, the writ petitioner quarried for the contractual period. Though the respondent did not renew the contract, the writ petitioner filed a civil suit and on the basis of interim order, continued quarrying, to be noted, this is the admitted averment of the writ petitioner.
However, it is not necessary to go into that aspect of the matter as it may be outside the four corners of the captioned main writ petition. As far as the captioned main writ petition is concerned, the writ petitioner filed return of income for said AY on 13.09.2015 admitting an income of Rs.14,79,470/- and claimed a sum of Rs. 2,58,67,698/- which according to the writ petitioner is 5% increased value of granite for the period from 01.12.2008 to 31.03.2014. Thereafter, the case of the writ petitioner was selected for limited scrutiny inter alia under Section 143(2) of Income Tax Act by the first respondent. To be noted, this is to verify the genuineness of ‘other expenses’.
The division bench of Justice M.Sundar held that when the appeal remedy is available and there is nothing to demonstrate that it is not efficacious, in the light of the discussion and dispositive reasoning thus far, this Court has no hesitation in holding that this is a fit case for relegating the writ petitioner to the alternate remedy under Section 246-A of Income Tax Act. “The sequitur is captioned writ petition or in other words campaign against the impugned order in writ jurisdiction fails and the writ petition is dismissed, albeit, preserving the rights of the writ petitioner to prefer a statutory appeal inter alia under Section 246-A of Income Tax Act subject of course to limitation and pre-deposit condition, if any. If the writ petitioner files an appeal, as already alluded to supra, subject to limitation and subject to pre- deposit condition if any, the said appeal shall be considered on its own merits and in accordance with law by the appellate authority. It is also made clear that it is open to the writ petitioner to seek exclusion of time spent in the captioned writ petition under Section 14 of the Limitation Act and if the writ petitioner chooses to do so, the Appellate Authority shall decide the same on its own merits and in accordance with law,” the court said.
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