Indian Perfumes And Flavours And ... vs Customs And Excise Settlement ...
2007 Latest Caselaw 1079 Del

JUDGMENT

Madan B. Lokur, J.

1. The Petitioner is from the State of Uttar Pradesh. The show-cause notice dated 9th March, 2006 was issued by the Deputy Commissioner, Central Excise Division-V, NOIDA (Uttar Pradesh).

2. Even though the impugned order may have been passed by the Settlement Commission in Delhi, we decline to entertain this petition since the proceedings were initiated in Uttar Pradesh and the assessed is also a resident of Uttar Pradesh. Various Benches of this Court have repeatedly taken the view that in such cases, the jurisdictional High Court will be with reference to the place from where the show cause notice was issued or the place from where the order in original was passed. See for example Seth Banarsi Das Gupta v. Commissioner of Income Tax (1978) 113 ITR 817, Suresh Desai & Associates v. Commissioner of Income Tax (1998) 203 ITR 912, and Commissioner of Income Tax v. Digvijay Chemicals Ltd. (2006) 204 CTR 234.

3. Recently, in a case pertaining to an order passed by the Settlement Commission, a Division Bench of this Court in West Coast Ingots (P) Ltd. v. Commissioner of Central Excise declined to exercise jurisdiction. In doing so, it was held as follows:

We reiterate that the issue in these cases is not whether this High Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the writ petition. That is certainly does not under Article 226, as already explained. The question really is whether this Court should decline to exercise its writ jurisdiction because a significant part of the cause of the action does not arise within its territorial jurisdiction. We may also add, that if the petitioner, in such event, will be without any remedy at all, the situation may be different. However, if the petitioner should properly approach the appropriate High Court within whose territorial limits a substantial portion of the cause of action arises, then this Court should decline to entertain the petition. At the cost of repetition, we may observe that a significant part of the cause of action cannot be said to arise within the territorial jurisdiction of this Court merely because the order under challenge has been passed by a Tribunal located within its territorial jurisdiction, when the events leading to the filing of the proceedings before such Tribunal, and the parties to such proceedings, are outside the territorial jurisdiction of the Court. This is the situation in the present case. Also, the petitioners here are not without remedy on account of this Court declining to entertain their petitions.

4. In fact, the Division Bench followed its earlier view in Raj Leather Cloth Industries Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India Writ Petition (C) No. 16672 of 2006 decided on 29th November, 2006 where again the challenge was to an order passed by the Settlement Commission and the High Court declined to entertain the writ petition.

5. The Supreme Court in Kusum Ingots & Alloys Ltd. v. Union of India and Anr. has expounded the law in the following words:

We must, however, remind ourselves that even if a small part of cause of action arises within the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court, the same by itself may not be considered to be a determinative factor compelling the High Court to decide the matter on merit. In appropriate cases, the Court may refuse to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction by invoking the doctrine of forum conveniens. See Bhagat Singh Bugga v. Dewan Jagbir Sawhney, Madanlal Jalan v. Madanlal Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. v. Jharia Talkies & Cold Storage (P) Ltd., S.S. Jain & Co. v. Union of India and New Horizons Ltd. v. Union of India

6. In view of the settled position, at least in so far as this Court is concerned, we decline to entertain this writ petition leaving it to the Petitioner to approach the jurisdictional High Court.

7. Dismissed. All pending applications are disposed of.