- (1.) HEARD Sri Vivek Tankha, Senior Advocate, assisted by Sri Mohd. Altaf Mansoor, counsel for the petitioner, Sri H.P. Srivastava, Additional Chief Standing Counsel for respondent Nos. 1 to 4, Sri Gaurav Mehrotra, Counsel for respondent No. 5 and Sri Desh Bandhu Bhargava, counsel for respondent Nos. 6 and 7. Through the above -captioned writ petitions under article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs: (i) issue a writ, order or directions in the nature of certiorari quashing the orders dated October 25, 2012 and dated November 9, 2012 passed by respondent Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, as contained in annexure Nos. 1 and 2 to the writ petition; (ii) issue a writ, order or directions in the nature of mandamus directing the State of U.P. to refund the claimed amount of VAT deposited by the petitioner with interest; (iii) issue a declaration declaring the impugned action of the State authorities in declining the claim of refund as ultra vires being violative to article 265 of the Constitution of India and other statutory provisions. (iv) such other/further relief as the honourable court may deem just and appropriate in the facts and circumstances of the case may also be granted in favour of the petitioner as against the respondents. (v) Award the cost of the writ petition to the petitioner.
(2.) SINCE common question of facts and law are involved in the above -captioned writ petitions, as such, with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties, they are being decided by a common order at the admission stage itself. Shorn off unnecessary details the facts of the case are as under: The petitioner, who is a public limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, is registered under the Central Sales Tax Act and U.P. Trade Tax Act/U.P. Value Added Tax Act. He, is engaged in the business of manufacturing urea fertilizer and for that purpose, natural gas has been used for generating energy to their furnaces. The petitioner purchases Natural Gas from Reliance Industries Limited for using it for manufacturing urea fertilizer.
(3.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, a licence was given to the Reliance Industries Ltd. by the Central Government, whereby he was permitted to market and sell the petroleum and natural gas extracted from the KG basin to various customers and a part of the product was to be given to the Government of India free of cost, once Reliance Industries Ltd. had recovered the investment made by it in the extraction process and the remaining quantity of petroleum and natural gas was to be sold by Reliance Industries Ltd. to certain customers subject to allocation of the product in their favour by the Government of India. The aforesaid licence was granted by the Government of India by means of the Production Sharing Contract (hereinafter referred to as PSU), which was entered into between the Government of India and the contractors, i.e., Reliance Industries and NIKO (NECO) Ltd., wherein article 2 of the PSC, it has been mentioned that participating interest of Reliance Industries Ltd. is 90 per cent, whereas that of NIKO (NECO) Ltd. is 10 per cent. The petitioner is one of the customers of Reliance Industries Ltd. and has entered into a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (hereinafter referred to as "GSPA") dated March 27, 2009 with Reliance Industries Ltd. for purchasing gas from it. Subsequently, Reliance Industries Ltd. had assigned 30 per cent of participating interest under the PSC in favour of M/s. B.P. Exploration (Alpha) Ltd. in Block KG D6 basin. Accordingly, the requisite assignment in the GSPA was also made by the Reliance Industries Ltd. vide agreement deed executed on February 28, 2011 and the same was also informed to the petitioner vide letter dated August 25, 2011.;