Assistant Commercial Taxes Officer, Flying Squad vs Dey's Medical Store

Vineet Kothari, J.—Heard learned Counsel for the petitioner.

This revision petition is covered by the several decisions of this Court, therefore, the same has been disposed of at this stage.

By concurrent findings of two appellate authorities below, it was found in favour of the respondent-assessee that no penalty u/s 78(5) of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1994 was imposable upon the respondent-assessee merely because at the time of checking, though the relevant documents like bill and bilty were admittedly found with the goods in transit, but declaration form No. ST-18A was not filled up completely.

Learned Counsel for the Revenue has relied upon the judgment of the honourable Supreme Court in Commissioner of Sales Tax v. P.T. Enterprises [2000] 117 STC 315 wherein the honourable Supreme Court has only held that Section 29A of the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1958, authorizes the Check-post Officer to question, with reference to their market value, the value of the goods, which are carried by the transporter in his vehicle, as contained in the declaration or documents issued by the consignor of the goods, and issue a notice under Sub-section (11) of that Section to show cause why it should not be held that the vehicle of the transporter was carrying goods without paying sales tax or with the intention of evading sales tax, and why penalty should not be imposed. This judgment is not applicable to the facts of the present case because admittedly, the other relevant documents like bill and bilty were accompanied with the goods in transit, the genuineness of such documents was not even doubted by the assessing authority and the power to issue notice and impose penalty is not in question in the present case. The case is that since furnishing of form ST-18A with some cuttings and later on furnishing of correct form ST-18A has been taken by the two appellate authorities of the department concurrently to be a bona fide clerical error, it could not result in the imposition of the penalty. Therefore, this judgment has no application to the present case. The other judgment relied upon by the learned Counsel for the Revenue in the case of Calcutta Iron Merchants'' Association v. Commissioner of Commercial Taxes [1996] 101 STC 422 (SC) is also not applicable to the facts of the present case. In that case, the assessee contended that since goods in question were taxable at the first point of sale, namely, iron and steel, therefore, the sellers (manufacturers) were not issuing the declarations as contemplated by Rule 89A(2) and they were, therefore, not in a position to produce the declaration when demanded by the authorities. This judgment has no application to the present case because admittedly declaration in form No. ST-18A was furnished by the consignee-assessee even at the time of transit and on being pointed out about some cuttings in ST-18A, the corrected ST-18A was furnished by the assessee.

This Court has held in a number of similar cases that no penalty u/s 78(5) of the RST Act is imposable in the aforesaid circumstances and no question of law arises against concurrent finding of two appellate authorities below.

Accordingly, there is no force in this revision petition as no question of law arises for consideration u/s 86 of the Act. The revision petition is, accordingly, devoid of merit and the same is, therefore, dismissed. A copy of this order may be sent to the respondent-assessee.