HC rejects Assessee’s plea for refund by way of repeated representations

The Petitioner is inter alia engaged in trading and manufacturing of textile fabrics, the sales of which were exempted under MVAT Act. The Petitioner had filed for the refund application during the period 2009-10 in the name of Mudra Lifestyle Limited which was at a later stage taken over by E-Land Apparel Limited. The Revenue passed an ex-parte order rejecting the refund application. Aggrieved, the Petitioner preferred a Writ before the Bombay HC, contending that the refund rejection order had never been served upon them.

Referring to provisions of sec 18 of MVAT Act, the HC observed that the registered dealer who transfer by sales/otherwise his business or there is effective any change in the business, shall within the prescribed time inform the authority about such change. In the instant case, the Petitioner had not complied with the said provision. Further, the Revenue had intimated about the rejection at the portal, duly complying with the applicable provisions. Thus, HC rejected Petitioner’s contention that since the copy of the refund rejection order was not served, the cause of action survived.

Further, the HC also observed that the Petitioner had been filing representations since 2018, even though the application pertained to 2011 as per Form 501. In this regard, it was observed by the HC that the Petitioner, by passage of time had allowed the remedy of claiming refund to be lost whereas the law is well settled that making of repeated representations does not have the effect of keeping the claim alive. In view of the above, the HC held that such repeated representations do not give a fresh cause of action to the Petitioner and mere making of representation cannot justify a belated approach. Accordingly, the HC dismissed the Writ Petition, being unreasonable.

E-LAND Apparels Limited [Writ Petition No. 1819 of 2019]

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