2025-VIL-958-TRI
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VAT High Court Cases

Tripura Value Added Tax Act, 2004 - Works Contractor, Refund of VAT, Limitation for filing refund application, Self-assessment – The TDS collected and deposited by the ONGC and the PWD Department on Works Contract and appropriate VAT on sale turnover was deposited by petitioner and this was reflected in VAT returns - The petitioner submitted statutory VAT audit reports and also filed annual returns seeking refund of excess VAT paid for the Financial years 2006-07 to 2013-14 – Denial of refund claims on various grounds - Whether the petitioner's applications for refund were time-barred - HELD - The limitation of 21 days from the end of each return period, prescribed under Rule 35(3) of the Tripura VAT Rules for seeking a refund applies only to dealers doing 'export sales' and not to dealers like the petitioner doing 'works contracts' - The contention of respondents that this period of 21 days prescribed under sub–Rule (3) of Rule 35 also applies to petitioner though it is doing ‘works contracts’ and not ‘export sales’ cannot be accepted – Further, where substantive rights of parties are likely to be affected and extinguished, only the legislature can prescribe the limitation, and such limitation cannot be prescribed by the Rules made under the Statute. As the Act did not prescribe any limitation for filing a refund application, the petitioner's refund applications were not time-barred - The applications for refund for each financial year have been filed within one year from the end of the financial year in question, therefore they cannot be said to have been filed after an unreasonable period of time or time barred – The respondents shall take into account the details furnished by petitioner in the statutory VAT audit reports, and the challans, TDS certificates and other documents on record and process and grant refund to the petitioner of the amounts due to it and shall also pay interest thereon to the petitioner under Section 45 of the Act. The respondents shall also pay costs of Rs.2 lakhs to the petitioner – The writ petition is allowed - Whether the respondents could deny the refund on the ground that there was no 'assessment' of the petitioner's tax liability - HELD - The respondents' plea about the lack of 'assessment' cannot be raised, as the petitioner's quarterly returns were accepted by the respondents without any dispute, and under Section 29(3) of the Act, the said returns have to be accepted as 'self assessment'. Further, the petitioner had submitted the statutory VAT audit reports as required under Section 53 of the Act, which also constitute 'additional information' under Section 52 of the Act, based on which the respondents could have initiated appropriate action. The respondents cannot deny the refund on the ground of lack of 'assessment' when they failed to initiate any such assessment within the statutory period.
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