Facts of the Case

M/s. Rout Infrastructures Pvt. Ltd. ('the Petitioner') filed W.P.(C) No.23771 of 2023 before the Orissa High Court against the Commissioner of CT & GST, Odisha, Cuttack, and other opposite parties, who were represented by the Standing Counsel for the CT & GST Department and by Standing Counsel for CGST, CX & Customs. The matter was taken up through hybrid mode and came up for orders on 08.11.2023 before a Division Bench comprising the Acting Chief Justice and Justice Murahari Sri Raman under the Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and allied central GST legislation. The order itself is extremely brief and records no independent facts, figures, or findings; it disposes of the petition solely by applying an earlier common order of the same Court.

Issues Involved

  1. Whether the grievance raised by the Petitioner against the CT & GST Department was identical to that already adjudicated in the batch of writ petitions led by Pravat Kumar Choudhury v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST.
  2. Whether the present petition could be disposed of by applying the common order passed in that batch, without a separate, independent adjudication.

Petitioner's Arguments

  • The order does not record any separately argued submissions by the Petitioner; the matter appears to have been treated, without contest, as covered by the common order already passed in the batch of connected GST writ petitions.
  • By implication, the Petitioner's grievance against the action of the Commissioner of CT & GST, Odisha, mirrored the grievance raised by the petitioners in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and the connected batch, since the Court found it appropriate to apply the very same common order.

Respondent's Arguments

  • The order does not record any separate submissions advanced by the Commissioner of CT & GST or by the CGST/CX/Customs authorities; their Standing Counsel appeared, but no independent contention is noted in the order.
  • No opposition appears to have been raised to disposing of the petition on the same terms as the common batch order dated 06.11.2023.

Court Order/Findings

  • The Division Bench, taking up the matter through hybrid mode, found that the writ petition was covered by the common order already passed on 06.11.2023 in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and batch, titled M/s. Pravat Kumar Choudhury and others v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Cuttack and others.
  • The Court disposed of the present writ petition strictly in terms of that common order, without recording any fresh reasoning or independent relief specific to this Petitioner.
  • No liberty, direction, or observation independent of the batch order was reserved for the Petitioner in this order.

Important Clarification

  • Where multiple writ petitions raise a common grievance against the CT & GST Department arising from the same or a similar cause, courts frequently dispose of the connected matters by simply adopting the reasoning and directions of a lead or common order, rather than repeating the analysis in every individual order.
  • Practitioners relying on this order for precedent value should instead examine the underlying common order dated 06.11.2023 in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and batch (Pravat Kumar Choudhury v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST), since that is where the substantive reasoning and ratio actually lie.

Sections Involved

  • Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 / Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 — the general statutory framework under which the Commissioner of CT & GST and the Additional State Tax Officer function; the specific provisions actually in issue are set out in the underlying common order rather than in this short disposal.

Decision – In Favour of

Since the order simply applies the common order dated 06.11.2023 passed in W.P.(C) No.6684 of 2023 and batch, without recording any independent finding on merits, this disposal cannot be characterised as a clean win for either side on the facts recorded here alone. The outcome effectively followed whatever relief was granted in the lead batch matter (Pravat Kumar Choudhury v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST); to that extent the disposal may be described as in favour of the Assessee/Petitioner, but only derivatively, since no fresh reasoning is recorded in this order itself.

Related Case Laws

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

Case Details

  • Court: Orissa High Court, Cuttack
  • Case No.: W.P.(C) No.23771 of 2023
  • CNR: Not available on record
  • Coram: Acting Chief Justice Dr. B. R. Sarangi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman
  • Decision Date: 08.11.2023
  • Disposal Nature: Disposed of in terms of common order dated 06.11.2023 in W.P.(C) No.6684/2023 and batch (Pravat Kumar Choudhury v. Additional State Tax Officer, CT & GST)

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