Facts of the Case

The petitioner, M/s. Maa Chandi Stone Crushing, Bhubaneswar, approached the Orissa High Court at Cuttack by way of a writ petition, W.P.(C) No.35300 of 2023, against Union of India & Others. The matter was taken up through hybrid mode and disposed of by order dated 08.11.2023. The order as extracted is a short, purely procedural disposal, and it does not set out the underlying facts of the dispute, the GST provision under which the impugned order was passed, the assessment or adjudication order being challenged, or any factual or documentary background. The Court's record confines itself to noting that an order impugned before it was appealable, and disposing of the writ petition on that basis.

Issues Involved

  1. Whether the High Court should exercise its writ jurisdiction to entertain a challenge to an order that is otherwise appealable under the applicable statutory scheme.

Petitioner's Arguments

  • The order sheet does not record any submissions made on behalf of the petitioner beyond the appearance of counsel, Ms. Kananbala Roy Choudhury; the specific grounds urged in support of invoking writ jurisdiction are not disclosed in the extracted text.

Respondent's Arguments

  • The order records the appearance of Mr. Sunil Mishra, Standing Counsel for the CT & GST Organization, and Mr. Avinash Kedia, Junior Standing Counsel for the Central Excise and CGST Department, but does not set out any specific arguments advanced on behalf of the Opposite Parties.

Court Order/Findings

  • The Bench held that since the order impugned is an appealable one, the Court was not inclined to entertain the writ petition.
  • Liberty was granted to the petitioner to pursue its remedy before the appropriate forum in accordance with law.
  • The writ petition was accordingly disposed of, granting liberty as aforesaid, without any adjudication on the merits of the underlying dispute.

Important Clarification

  • The order does not decide any substantive question relating to GST law; it is confined to a threshold ruling on maintainability, applying the settled principle that a writ court will ordinarily decline to entertain a challenge where an efficacious statutory appellate remedy is available.
  • The disposal is without prejudice to the petitioner's right to challenge the impugned order on merits before the appellate authority, subject to that authority's own requirements as to limitation and pre-deposit.

Sections Involved

  • The order does not cite any specific section of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 or the Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. Given the reference to an "appealable" order and the appearance of counsel for the CT & GST Organization and the Central Excise and CGST Department, the underlying order is likely to have been passed under the GST appellate framework (ordinarily Section 107 of the CGST/OGST Act, 2017, which provides for appeals to the Appellate Authority), though this is not expressly stated in the text of the order.

Decision – In Favour of

Neither party, strictly speaking. The writ petition was disposed of on grounds of maintainability, without any finding on the merits of the underlying GST dispute, and with liberty granted to the petitioner to pursue its statutory appellate remedy.

Related Case Laws

This site has published several other orders of the Orissa High Court following a similar disposition pattern in GST matters — where the Court declines to entertain a writ petition on the ground that the impugned order is appealable and grants the petitioner liberty to approach the appropriate appellate forum. Readers researching the scope of writ jurisdiction versus statutory appeal in GST proceedings before the Orissa High Court may find those posts useful for comparison, though each order turns on its own facts.

Case Details

  • Court: High Court of Orissa at Cuttack
  • Case No.: W.P.(C) No.35300 of 2023
  • Case Title: M/s. Maa Chandi Stone Crushing vs Union of India & Others
  • Coram: Acting Chief Justice Dr. B.R. Sarangi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman
  • Date of Order: 08.11.2023
  • Counsel for Petitioner: Ms. Kananbala Roy Choudhury, Advocate
  • Counsel for Opposite Parties: Mr. Sunil Mishra, Standing Counsel for CT & GST Organization; Mr. Avinash Kedia, Junior Standing Counsel for Central Excise and CGST Department

Link to Download the Order

Download the full judgment (PDF)

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