Facts of the Case

The petitioner, Pabitra Nath Marndi, filed a writ petition before the Orissa High Court against the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and Goods and Service Tax, Odisha, and others. The matter was taken up through hybrid mode before the Acting Chief Justice and Justice Murahari Sri Raman. The order itself is extremely brief and does not set out the underlying factual matrix, the specific GST demand, notice or registration action being challenged, or the arguments urged by either side. Instead, the Bench recorded that the writ petition was to be disposed of in terms of the common order passed by the same Court on 6th November 2023 in W.P.(C) No. 6684 of 2023 and a batch of connected writ petitions, being the case of M/s. Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others.

Issues Involved

  1. Whether the present writ petition, being one among a batch of similar GST matters, should be disposed of by applying the common order/ratio laid down in the lead case of Pravat Kumar Choudhury v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack (W.P.(C) No. 6684 of 2023 and batch).

Petitioner's Arguments

  • No independent submissions on behalf of the petitioner are recorded in this order; the matter appears to have been treated as squarely covered by the batch disposed of on 6th November 2023.

Respondent's Arguments

  • No independent submissions on behalf of the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and GST, Odisha, or the Standing Counsel are separately recorded in this order.

Court Order/Findings

  • The Court did not record independent reasoning in this order; it simply disposed of the writ petition in terms of the common order dated 6th November 2023 passed in W.P.(C) No. 6684 of 2023 and connected batch (Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others).
  • No further operative directions specific to this petitioner are set out in the text of this order.

Important Clarification

This order illustrates the Orissa High Court's practice of clubbing multiple similarly-placed GST writ petitions and disposing of each by cross-reference to a common/lead order, without repeating the underlying reasoning in every connected matter. A reader seeking the substantive ratio applicable to this petitioner must refer to the lead judgment in Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others (W.P.(C) No. 6684 of 2023 and batch), since this short order does not itself disclose the facts, issues or reasoning.

Sections Involved

  • Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 — the general statute under which the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and GST, Odisha, exercises jurisdiction over the underlying dispute, the precise provision not being disclosed in this order.

Decision – In Favour of

This is a purely procedural, batch-reference disposal with no independent finding on merits recorded in the text available; the outcome for this specific petitioner cannot honestly be characterised as favouring either the Assessee or the Department without reference to the lead order in the Pravat Kumar Choudhury batch, which this order simply follows.

Related Case Laws

No directly on-point case notes are currently published on this site.

Case Details

  • Court: High Court of Orissa at Cuttack
  • Case No.: W.P.(C) No.32913 of 2023
  • CNR: Not available
  • Coram: Acting Chief Justice Dr. B. R. Sarangi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman
  • Decision Date: 8 November 2023
  • Disposal Nature: Disposed of in terms of a common GST order

Link to Download the Order

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