True Lines (India) Industries vs The Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner

O. Chinnappa Reddy, J.—These eight writ petitions (Nos. 1530, 1531, 1580, 1581, 1590, 1591, 2283 and 2284 of 1976) raise a common question.

They may, therefore, be disposed of by a common judgment. It is sufficient if I refer to the facts in C.W.P. No. 1530 of 1976. The petitioner, M/s. True Lines (India) Industries, was assessed to sales tax by the Assessing Authority, Ludhiana, by an order dated 29th January, 1973. On 22nd January, 1976, the Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, District Ludhiana, issued a notice purporting to be u/s 21(1) of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948, read with Section 9 of the Central Sales Tax Act, informing the petitioner that he had called for the record of proceedings of the assessment order dated 29th January, 1973, for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the legality and propriety of the proceedings and that he proposed to give an opportunity to the petitioner of being heard on all aspects of the matter. At the bottom of the notice, it was stated as follows:

Remarks.

The sales of Rs. 1,02,056.48 and Rs. 1,06,807.50 taxed at 1 per cent and 3 per cent respectively under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, shown to M/s. Shambhu Lal Nanji & Co., Bombay, were denied and seven other firms.

The petitioner questions this notice on the ground that the Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner was, in fact, not trying to revise the order of assessment passed by the Assessing Authority but was trying to reopen the assessment on the basis of fresh information received by him subsequent to the order of assessment. It was urged that he was not competent to do so as the power to reopen the assessment on the basis of fresh information was vested u/s 11A of the Act in the Assessing Authority and not in the revising authority. It was submitted that the revising authority acting u/s 21(1) of the General Sales Tax Act had to confine itself to the record of the proceeding on which the Assessing Authority based the order of assessment and not on any fresh information that came into its possession. Learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the decision of a Full Bench of this Court in Hari Chand Rattan Chand & Co. Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner.

In the return filed by the Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, it was stated that from the record before the Assessing Authority, it was found that there was variation in the signatures of the same person Shambhu Lal Nanji in the declarations issued against bill No. CP/34 dated 24th March, 1972 and bill No. S-18 dated 4th July, 1974. The variation in the signatures passed unnoticed by the Assessing Authority and this made it necessary for the revising authority to examine the propriety of the order of the Assessing Authority and to make further enquiry as to the other alleged sales made by the petitioner. On further enquiry it was revealed that some of the dealers to whom sales were said to have been made either did not exist or their registration certificates were cancelled long ago.

In Hari Chand Rattan Chand & Co. Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, the scope of Section 21(1) of the Act was considered in some detail. The Full Bench observed that the revising authority could not bring (1) [1969] 24 S.T.C. 258 to tax, in the purported exercise of revisional power, any turnover which had not been disclosed to the Assessing Authority by the dealer or which was not discovered by him during the course of assessment and which had come to the notice of the revising authority later. That, it was said, was the function of the Assessing Authority u/s 11A of the Act and could not be exercised by the revising authority. It was, however, made clear that if in respect of the turnover which was the subject-matter of the proceeding before the Assessing Authority, any enquiry was to be made or evidence had to be examined, the revising authority was at perfect liberty to do so, to make such further enquiry or to take such further evidence as it considered fit to determine the legality or propriety of the order of the Assessing Authority. It was expressly pointed out that the bogus signature or the falsity of the deductions or exemptions allowed could also be gone into. In the present case, the revising authority found from the record, which was before the Assessing Authority, that certain .transactions appeared to be bogus. On the basis of what was found in the record, the revising authority made further enquiry which he was competent to do. It was not a case where the revising authority initiated the proceeding for revision on the basis of any fresh information received by him which was not already part of the record. The proceeding for revision was initiated on the basis of suspicious features found in the record itself. The revising authority was, therefore, perfectly competent to issue the impugned notice. The writ petitions are, therefore, dismissed with costs.