Supreme Court: Deciding an important question of law as to whether provisions of Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 are applicable in respect of revision petition filed in the High Court under Section 81 of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (VAT Act), the Court held that the court cannot interpret the law in such a manner so as to read into the Act an inherent power of condoning the delay by invoking Section 5 of the Limitation Act so as to supplement the provisions of the VAT Act which excludes the operation of Section 5 of the Limitation Act by necessary implications.
Taking note of the fact that Section 84 of the VAT Act made only Sections 4 and 12 of the Limitation Act applicable to the proceedings under the VAT Act, the Court noticed that the legislative intent behind the same was to exclude other provisions, including Section 5 of the Limitation Act. Section 29(2) stipulates that in the absence of any express provision in a special law, provisions of Sections 4 to 24 of the Limitation Act would apply. If the intention of the legislature was to make Section 5, or for that matter, other provisions of the Limitation Act applicable to the proceedings under the VAT Act, there was no necessity to make specific provision like Section 84 thereby making only Sections 4 and 12 of the Limitation Act applicable to such proceedings, in as much as these two Sections would also have become applicable by virtue of Section 29(2) of the Limitation Act.
The bench of Dr. A.K. Sikri and Abhay Manohar Sapre, JJ said that the VAT Act is a complete code not only laying down the forum but also prescribing the time limit within which each forum would be competent to entertain the appeal or revision. The underlying object of the Act appears to be not only to shorten the length of the proceedings initiated under the different provisions contained therein, but also to ensure finality of the decision made there under. Hence, the application of Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 to a proceeding under Section 81(1) of the VAT Act stands excluded by necessary implication, by virtue of the language employed in section 84. [Patel Brothers v. State of Assam, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 19, decided on 04.01.2017]
