RAJALAKSHMI INDUSTRIES Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) DR.

(2.) THESE two tax revision cases have been filed by the assessee against the common order of the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Main Bench, Madras, dated August 10, 1981, concerning the assessment years 1974-75 and 1975-76. The legal and factual questions being common, we are obliged to dispose of these revision cases in common.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the assessee-petitioner questioned the best of judgment assessment as well as the levy of penalty. LEARNED counsel argued that though the assessee had not filed the returns and had also not produced the accounts despite giving of opportunities, yet the reason for not filing the returns or producing the accounts was the detention of Thiru T. Kadiresan, the managing partner of the assessee-firm under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (hereinafter referred to as "MISA"). This plea appears to us to be an argument of despair. On the assessee's own showing before the appellate authority as well as the Tribunal, Thiru Kadiresan was shown to have been detained under MISA on February 8, 1976 and released in July 1976. There was no reason why the return for the year 1974-75 could not have been filed in time prior to the detention under MISA. There is also no reason as to why the accounts were not produced before the assessing authority despite numerous opportunities when the assessment proceedings were taken up in the year 1980 because admittedly the managing partner was not under any detention at that point of time. The assessing authority as well as the appellate authority and the Tribunal concurrently found that the assessee who held a licence in form D.L. 2 with an annual quota of 10, 000 litres of denatured spirit for manufacture of armature varnish had neither maintained production-cum-stock account nor any sales account or sales bills. It was also unable to explain the dealings as found in the bank extract. The submission of the assessee that the copies of the bank extracts had not been furnished to the assessee to enable it to offer an explanation is a futile submission, because the order of assessment itself incorporated the details of the bank extract. It was the obligation of the assessee to have explained the huge remittances, as the assessee alone could be said to be in possession of the relevant material and knowledge relating thereto. The assessee failed to do so. The assessing authority as well as the appellate authority and the Tribunal, therefore, were perfectly justified in resorting to the best of judgment assessment on the facts and circumstances of the case. Since the assessee had failed to establish before the authorities below that it was not liable to be assessed, the order of assessment made by the assessing authority and upheld by the appellate authority as well as the Tribunal does not call for any interference in exercise of our revisional jurisdiction, as we do not find the same to suffer from any error whatsoever. On facts, findings have been recorded based on the bank extracts and assessments have been made on the basis thereof. We do not, therefore, find any force in the grievance made by the learned counsel for the petitioner in that behalf.