Gujarat seeks review of court order favouring companies

GANDHINAGAR - The Gujarat High Court is set to hear the state government’s appeal against its earlier order prohibiting the state from collecting stamp duty from companies on imported goods, a government lawyer said Saturday.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya is likely to hear the matter March 10.

Government counsel in the case said that the order of prohibition delivered by a single judge was “erroneous and bad in law”.

He said the companies would be benefited by billions of rupees and the state would lose the duty on it if the error is not rectified.

The government claimed in the appeal that the single judge overlooked the provisions of law and did not appreciate the Indian Stamp Act properly.

The division bench will hear appeals of the state government against Essar Steel, Essar Oil, Tata Chemicals, Reliance Industries, Hindalco Industries, Indian Oil Corporation, Ultratech Cement, Gujarat Ambuja Cements and others.

The companies had earlier approached the court seeking appropriate direction and declaring a government circular on stamp duty bad in law.

The January 2007 circular was issued to port officers/traffic managers of concerned ports that they would not issue documents for any vessel arriving at a port unless they had stamp duty clearance.