1. In Commercial Tax Department v. Teena Saraswant Pandey, (Company Appeal (AT) (Ins.) No. 1265 of 2022), the NCLAT observed that commercial tax department could not be treated as ‘secured creditor’ in relation to the taxes owed by the corporate debtor under Madhya Pradesh VAT Act, 2002 (“MPVAT”). To arrive at the conclusion, NCLAT relied on its earlier decision in Zicom SaaS (where a claim of the State tax authority of Maharashtra was not treated as secured charge – which we have covered here) and observed that Section 37 of the Maharashtra VAT Act (MVAT) and Section 33 of the MPVAT Act appeared to be pari materia.
However, in our humble opinion, the two provisions are not pari materia. A charge under Section 37 of MVAT is…
