Facts of the Case

The petitioner, Victoria Grand, Puri, filed this writ petition challenging an order passed by the Additional Commissioner of State Tax (Appeal), Bhubaneswar, and other opposite parties, in a matter arising under the Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The petition was listed and heard through hybrid mode before the Acting Chief Justice and a Judge of the Orissa High Court on 14.11.2023. The order itself is extremely brief, running to barely a page, and records no independent facts, grounds, or arguments specific to this petitioner. Instead, the Bench proceeded on the footing that the grievance raised by this petitioner against the State Tax appellate machinery was of the same nature as that already considered and decided by the same Bench a few days earlier, on 6 November 2023, in a batch of connected writ petitions filed by other similarly placed taxpayers against the CT & GST Department, led by W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 (M/s. Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others).

Issues Involved

  1. Whether the petitioner's challenge to the State Tax appellate order fell within the scope of the common issue already decided by the Court in its batch order dated 06.11.2023 in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and connected matters.

Petitioner's Arguments

  • No independent submissions of the petitioner are recorded in this order; the petition appears to have raised the same or a substantially similar grievance against the State Tax/GST appellate process as the petitioners in the batch of connected writ petitions disposed of by the common order dated 06.11.2023.

Respondent's Arguments

  • No independent submissions of the CT & GST Department are recorded in this order beyond the Standing Counsel's appearance; the disposal proceeded on the basis of the batch order already covering the issue.

Court Order/Findings

  • The Court did not record any independent reasoning specific to Victoria Grand's facts, nor did it restate the substance of the earlier batch order.
  • The writ petition was disposed of strictly in terms of the common order dated 6 November 2023 passed by the same Bench in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and batch (M/s. Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others).
  • No separate directions, findings on merits, or costs order specific to this petitioner appear in the order; the disposal is essentially administrative, applying an already-settled common ratio to this individual petition.
  • The hearing was conducted through hybrid mode, reflecting the routine, non-contentious manner in which this batch of connected GST matters was taken up and closed.

Important Clarification

Where a High Court has already decided a common legal issue affecting multiple similarly placed GST taxpayers in a batch order, subsequently filed writ petitions raising the same issue are frequently disposed of by a short cross-reference to that common order rather than by independent reasoning; a reader wanting to understand the actual ratio applicable to such cases must refer to the underlying batch order (here, in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023) rather than this short disposal order alone. Practitioners tracking outcomes in similar State Tax appellate disputes from Odisha should therefore treat this order as a pointer to, rather than a substitute for, the reasoning in the lead batch matter.

Sections Involved

  • Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 — the governing State GST enactment under which the appellate order was passed.
  • Article 226, Constitution of India — invoked for the writ petition before the Orissa High Court.

Decision – In Favour of

This is a thin, purely procedural disposal. The petition was disposed of by cross-reference to a common batch order without any independent finding recorded for or against either the Assessee or the Department in this specific matter.

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.29326 of 2023
  • CNR: Not available
  • Coram: Acting Chief Justice Dr. B.R. Sarangi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman
  • Decision Date: 14 November 2023
  • Disposal Nature: Disposed of in terms of common batch order

Link to Download the Order

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