KHANMAL Vs. S GANAPATHY CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN application No. 2737 of 1981, the applicant-plaintiff prays for the issuance of summons to the Special Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Commercial Tax Officer, Chepauk Circle, and the Special Deputy Commercial Tax Officer (1), Group II, Enforcement, to give evidence and to cause the production of certain statements recorded from the defendant at the time of the raid on 17th May, 1977, and also the assessment file of Karkalayar Plastic Works for the year 1976-77. In application No. 3944 of 1980, the prayer is for the issuance of summons to the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Choolai Assessment Circle, to give evidence and cause the production of the documents listed therein.

(2.) THE suit was for the recovery of the amount borrowed by the defendant, Ganapathi Chettiar, for running his business Karkalayar Plastic Works amounting to Rs. 98, 794-51. According to the plaintiff, his representative would sit in the defendant's factory and maintain an account of the day-to-day expenditure in slips of paper and the account book would be written at the end of the day. The defendant's employees would also maintain slips in which the entries would be recorded and ultimately all of them would be transposed into the books. It is in the course of advances to the said business that the plaintiff claims that a large sum was due to him. It was stated that on 17th May, 1977, the officials of the commercial tax department raided the defendant's factory at Periathambi Mudali Street, Madras, and his residence in the same street and seized the slips of paper, bills, vouchers, account books, etc. The plaintiff stated that on the same day his slips of paper and account books had been seized by the said officials and that the production of all the original documents was necessary to prove his case. He applied for certified copies of the said slips and account books, but the commercial tax department allowed him only to take a copy of his account books and did not give certified copies of the documents. It was under those circumstances that he filed the above two applications with the prayers mentioned above.In the counter-affidavit, the defendant stated that the raids and the recovery of the slips were subsequent to the institution of the suit and that therefore they were not relevant to the matter covered by the suit. The allegations of the plaintiff in his affidavits in support of the applications were denied.

(3.) THERE was also another point adverted to in the counter-affidavit to the effect that the department could not be required to produce all the documents by an omnibus order and that the plaintiff should be directed to specify the exact documents required for production.The learned counsel for the applicant contended that there is no bar which stood in the way of the court summoning the documents, if necessary, from the commercial tax department, Mr. N. S. Raghavan, the Learned counsel for the respondent and the learned Additional Government Pleader contended that section 57 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act stood in the way of the court summoning the documents referred to in this case. It is therefore necessary to refer to section 57 before proceeding further. Section 57, in so far as it is material, runs as follows :