Facts of the Case

The Petitioner, M/s. Urmila Fly Ash Bricks, Khurda, filed a writ petition before the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack against the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs and others, raising a GST-related grievance concerning the CT & GST Department. The matter was taken up through hybrid mode on 8 November 2023. Rather than being independently argued and decided, the petition was disposed of in terms of a common order passed by the same Bench a few days earlier, on 6 November 2023, in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and a batch of connected writ petitions titled M/s. Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others. The order itself does not independently set out the facts or reasoning applicable to the Petitioner, being confined to applying the common order to this matter as well. This practice of clubbing similarly placed GST writ petitioners with a lead batch is common in High Courts facing a large volume of identical or near-identical grievances against the same category of departmental notices or orders, allowing the Court to conserve judicial time while still extending the substantive relief decided in the lead matter to every connected Petitioner, including the present one.

Issues Involved

  1. Whether the Petitioner's grievance, being of the same nature as that raised in the batch of connected writ petitions decided on 6 November 2023, warranted the same treatment and disposal.

Petitioner's Arguments

  • The Petitioner's grievance against the CT & GST Department authorities was of a piece with those raised in the batch of connected petitions led by Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others, and ought to receive the same relief.

Respondent's Arguments

  • No separate contest was recorded by the Respondents, the Department having already addressed the common issue in the batch matter decided on 6 November 2023.

Court Order/Findings

  • The Division Bench (Sarangi, ACJ, and Raman, J.) took up the matter through hybrid mode and applied its own common order dated 6 November 2023.
  • The Court held that the present writ petition stood disposed of in terms of the common order passed in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and the batch of connected petitions (Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others), thereby extending the same relief/directions to this Petitioner.
  • No independent reasoning specific to the Petitioner's facts appears in the order; the disposal is entirely by reference to the batch order.

Important Clarification

Where multiple taxpayers raise a common grievance against GST authorities on the same issue, courts frequently decide a lead matter in detail and dispose of connected petitions — including this one — simply by applying the common order, without repeating the reasoning in each individual case.

Sections Involved

  • Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and Odisha State Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 — underlying CT & GST Department proceedings.
  • Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950 — writ jurisdiction invoked.

Decision – In Favour of

This is an exceptionally thin, batch-linked disposal that does not itself disclose whether the outcome favours the Assessee or the Department — the substantive relief lies entirely within the common order in the Pravat Kumar Choudhury batch, which is not reproduced here. No independent merits determination can honestly be attributed to this order standing alone. Readers seeking the actual reasoning and relief applicable to this Petitioner would need to examine the parent common order dated 6 November 2023 in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and the connected batch, since the present order is, in substance, a mechanical extension of that ruling to one more similarly placed taxpayer within the CT & GST Department's jurisdiction at Cuttack. Until that parent order is separately reviewed, this disposal should be treated as inconclusive on the question of who ultimately prevailed on the underlying GST grievance raised by this Petitioner and the other connected taxpayers in the batch.

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.26889 of 2023
  • CNR: Not available
  • Coram: Acting Chief Justice Dr. B. R. Sarangi and Mr. Justice Murahari Sri Raman
  • Decision Date: 8 November 2023
  • Disposal Nature: Disposed of in terms of a common order in a batch of GST writ petitions

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