DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF COMMERCIAL TAXES MADRAS DIVISION MADRAS Vs. C M SWAMY AND CO HIDES AND SKINS MERCHANTS MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The assessee was assessed to general sales tax for the assessment year 194849 on a turnover of Rs. 3,56,525-9-3. The order of the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer who was the assessing officer, was dated 15-6-1949 and a copy of it was server on the aasessee on 20-6-1949. Under the Sales Tax Act before it was amended in 1951, the assessee had the right to prefer an appeal to the Commercial Tax Officer within thirty days from too date of the service of the assessment order on the assesses. The assessee, however, filed the appeal on 128- 1949. There was no power then to condone any delay. The Commercial Tax Officer rejected the appeal as barred by time, and that order was dated 19-8-1949. Thereupon the assessee preferred a revision petition to the Board of Revenue, because before the amendment of the Act in 1951, there was no right of appeal against the order of the Commercial Tax Officer. It was the amending Act of 1951 that enacted the present Section 12-A, constituting the appellate Tribunal with powers of entertaining appeals.

(2.) The Board did not pass any orders on the petition filed by the assessee, but after the amending Act of 1951 had been passed under Section 19 of the General Sales Tax Act as it was amended, the Board transferred the petition to the Appellate Tribunal for disposal as if it. had been an appeal preferred to the Appellate Tribunal itself. In his application to the Board the assessee prayed that not only the order of the Commercial Tax Officer rejecting the appeal should be revised, but also that the order of assessment of the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer should be revised. But this prayer to revise the order of the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, having been preferred more than six months from the elate of the orr(sic) could not be granted on that application. So application to tho Board was for the review the order of the Commercial Tax Officer, an app(sic) and under Section 19 of tho Act it was as an app(sic) against the order of the Commercial Tax Office that it had to be viewed by the Appellate Tribunal.

(3.) The Appellate Tribunal pointed out that the Commercial Tax Officer rightly rejected the appeal as filed beyond the period of limitation allowed by the law as it stood then; but the Tribunal added: