SHILP CORPORATION Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Both these appeals under section 78 of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as "the GVAT Act") challenge the common order dated 25.9.2017 passed by the Gujarat Value Added Tax Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the "Tribunal") in Second Appeals No.599 and 600 of 2017.

(2.) Vide order dated 24.11.2017, the appeals had been admitted on the following substantial question of law:-

(3.) The facts stated briefly are that the appellant herein was engaged in the business of resale of paper and job work of paper coating and paper colouring and was registered under the GVAT Act as well as the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 . The business of the appellant was started from June 2008 in partnership with (a) Ishwarbhai Pitharam Chaudhary and (b) Ritesh Suryakant Vimavala. After conducting business for a few months, Mr. Ritesh Vimavala expressed his desire to retire from the partnership firm and, accordingly, a deed of dissolution was executed on 5.12.2008 and he retired with effect from 30.11.2008. The remaining partner, namely, Mr. Ishwarbhai Chaudhary decided to continue the business as a proprietary concern and, accordingly, the concerned officer was informed about the fact of retirement of Mr. Ritesh Vimavala and the business being continued by Mr. Ishwarbhai as a proprietary concern. Earlier, the name of the firm was Shilp Speciality Paper, which subsequently came to be changed to Shilp Corporation and the business was also changed. The concerned officer was informed about such change by a letter dated 26.8.2009. The appellant appointed Mr. Mitesh Chaudhary, the son of its proprietor, as an authorised person on 10.6.2010 and, accordingly, Form 101A was also submitted to the department. The appellant thereafter continued to do business and discharged its liability by filing returns and paying tax payable by it under the GVAT Act. On 5.12.2012, the proprietor of the appellant was called by the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Tax and he was informed that the registration number of the appellant was misused by someone else. It appears that an application was also filed by the retired partner for changing the name of the company and, accordingly, the name was changed to the earlier name of the appellant. The appellant was informed that while it had filed on-line returns, someone had manually filed revised annual returns for the years 2011-12 and 2012-13 and made claims for refund. It is the case of the appellant that on verification, it was noticed that the revised returns had the signature of Mr. Ritesh Vimawala who had already retired and, therefore, the appellant was not liable for such returns filed by the retired partner. It was also submitted that the appellant had not done any business with any dealers as admitted in the revised return.