Asutosh Sahoo vs Regional Transport Officer
2021 Latest Caselaw 8064 Ori

                  IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK

                                W.A No. 453 of 2021

               Asutosh Sahoo                      ....            Appellant
                                               Mr. B.M.Sarangi, Advocate
                                        -versus-
               Regional Transport Officer,        ....         Respondent
               Bhubaneswar-1
                                            Mr. Pravakar Behera,Advocate
                    CORAM:
                    THE CHIEF JUSTICE
                    JUSTICE B. P. ROUTRAY
Order No.                              ORDER
                                      2.08. 2021

  3.        1. The present appeal is directed against the order dated 22nd
            April, 2021 passed by the learned Single Judge dismissing the
            appellants Writ Petition(Civil) No. 13794 of 2021.

            2. Facts

in brief are present Petitioner claims to be the registered owner of the vehicle which according to him was seized by Canara Bank on account of default in payment of installments of the loan which was availed for financing the said vehicle.

3. According to the Appellant it was seized on 7th September, 2019 and released only on 19th March, 2021. During the period it was lying idle, according to the Petitioner, on the strength of the judgment is Shri Sudhakar Patnaik v. Commissioner-cum- Chairman, State Transport Authority 2004(Supp.) OLR 840 , the Appellant is not liable to pay any tax.

4. The learned Single Judge has negatived this plea since admittedly no prior intimation was given to the Transport Deptt. of the Bank having seized the vehicle. Accordingly, the learned

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Single Judge also distinguished the applicability of the decision of Sudhakar Patnaik (supra) and dismissed the writ petition.

5. Having heard Mr. Sarangi, learned counsel for the Appellant the Court is not persuaded to take a different view of the matter. Giving of prior intimation is mandatory in terms of Section 10 (1) of the Orissa Motor Vehicles Taxation Act, 1975(OMVT) Act and Section 10 (3) spells out the consequence of the failure to give such prior intimation. Section 10(3) of the OMVT Act, reads as hereunder:

" (3) In the absence of any undertaking delivered under Sub-sec(1) every motor vehicle liable to tax under this Act shall be deemed to have been used or kept for use within the State."

6. Mr. Sarangi, then volunteered that the Appellant would pay the tax but in terms of Section 13(2) of the OMVT Act, the penalty cannot be imposed unless a separate show cause notice is issued to him for that purpose.

7. The Court is not able agree with the above submission. Once the fact of non-payment of tax is admitted, the consequence of the failure to pay the tax in the first instance has s already been spelt out under Section 10(3) of the OMVT Act.

8. The Petitioner does not dispute that no tax is paid for the aforementioned period. With there being no dispute on this fact requiring a separate show cause notice to be issued just for the question of penalty would be an empty formality. Consequently, the Court is not persuaded that the impugned judgment suffers

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from any legal infirmity. The writ appeal is accordingly dismissed.

9. An urgent certified copy of this order be issued as per rules.

(Dr. S. Muralidhar) Chief Justice

( B.P. Routray) Judge

k.majhi