Order Date: 1 September 2022

Facts-

• The Appellant, Bisweswar Midhya had filed the writ petition challenging a show cause notice for cancellation of registration granted to the appellant. The primary ground on which the show cause notice was challenged is that there is no final order of adjudication passed by the competent authority quantifying the tax liability payable by the appellant.
•  Consequently the show cause to cancel the registration on the alleged ground of failure to pay tax and penalty would not arise.
• Order dated 22.08.2022 passed, the appellant is aggrieved by non-granting of any interim order pending disposal of the writ petition.

Issue-

• Whether the suspension of the appellant’s registration is sustainable?

Order-

• The Division Bench of Hon’ble High Court observed that the suspension of a license of a dealer will be counterproductive and would work against the interest of the revenue.  Because if the registration of a dealer is canceled, the dealer cannot carry on its business in the sense that no invoice can be raised by the dealer. This would ultimately impact the recovery of taxes. Therefore, the respondent department has to take a pragmatic view in the matter because a taxpayer is not to be treated as a person hostile to the department. Undoubtedly if the taxpayer has adopted a dubious process to evade payment tax then he has to be dealt with firmly.
• From the list of dates and events, the court observed that summons were repeatedly issued to the appellant and the appellant has been responding to the summons by submitting representations to the department. Furthermore, it is not clear as to why the authorities did not proceed further pursuant to the summons - the suspension of the appellant’s registration should be revoked forthwith with a direction to the appropriate authority to issue show cause notice within a time frame and take up the adjudication proceeding.
• The court held that the writ petition stand disposed of by directing the respondent authority to forthwith revoke the suspension of the appellant’s license and with a further direction to the respondent authority to issue show cause notice within seven days from the date of receipt of the server copy of this order.