Law: Sales Tax Act, 1990

Section: 47, 47A

Summary: The High Court did not decide the merits of the Sales Tax Reference and instead referred the matter to the Alternate Dispute Resolution Committee (ADRC), considering that the respondent is a state-owned enterprise. The Court relied on a Supreme Court ruling emphasizing that disputes involving state entities should be resolved through the statutory ADR mechanism.  Tagline  State-owned entity — Reference referred to ADRC — Alternate dispute resolution preferred — Matter disposed of without adjudication on merits. ORDER; INAAM AMEEN MINHAS, J:   This is a Sales Tax Reference filed by the Applicant under Section 47 of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 (“Sales Tax Act”) challenging the Order dated 18.02.2015 passed by the learned Appellate Tribunal Revenue, Inland Revenue, Islamabad. Since the Respondent is a State-owned enterprise, therefore, it would be appropriate that the forum for Alternate Dispute Resolution Committee (“ADRC”) provided under Section 47A of the Sales Tax Act be invoked for the resolution of the matter raised in the instant Reference. In this regard, the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Pakistan, while deciding Civil Petition No.5178/2023 titled “Commissioner Inland Revenue (Zone-I) Large Taxpayers Office, Islamabad vs. M/s Pakistan Television Corporation…