KANDASWAMI GOUNDAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are two connected revisions preferred against the orders made by the learned Additional First Class Magistrate of Salem in C.C. Nos. 663 and 664 of 1957 on his file.

(2.) THE petitioners have been charged for contravention of section 15(2)(a) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act in that they, dealers in coir and ropes, have wilfully submitted an incomplete and incorrect (and therefore an untrue) return in Form A for the years 1947 -48 and 1948 -49. The accused denied the offence, when question under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. They raised four preliminary objections, viz., (1) that it is not alleged, in conformity with clause (c) of section 15 as it stands at present that the caused had fraudulently evaded the payment of the tax or the compounding fee (2) that there is already a compounding order under section 16 of the Act and that this bars a prosecution for the same offence (3) that rule 13 of the Madras General Sales Tax (Turnover and Assessment) Rules should be held to be not validly brought into force following a recent Full Bench decision of the Andhra High Court reported in notes of recent cases as 1957 2 Andhra Law Journal (Batchu Sreeramulu Chetty v. State of Andhra Pradesh and (4) that section 15 of the Act in its present form is not a mere amendment but a substitution for the old one made by the Madras General Sales Tax (Third Amendment) Act, 1956, and consequently the old section 15 stands repealed, that the Amendment Act which came into force on 8th October, 1956, is not retrospective. Section 15, it was contended is a procedural section and the observation of Pollock, C.B., in Wright v. Hale (1860 30 L.J. Ex. 40), cited in In re Parthasarathi Naidu 1957 (2) MLJ 250 at p. 251), are relied on in support of the contention that the prosecutions in these cases cannot be legally sustained.

(3.) THERE is no substance or relevancy in the first contention, because the prosecution in this case is not under sub -section (c) of section 15 but is under sub -section (a), not for any evasion, fraudulent or otherwise, of any payment of tax or fee, but for submitting a return on the basis of which the tax is normally sought to be assessed and which returns were found to be untrue and to have been wilfully submitted in that matter : For definition of "wilful" see Kausalai Ammal v. Sankaramuthiah Pillai (1941 53 L.W. 744), In re Govindarajulu In re Narasingamultu Chetti 1948 (1) STC 180 1948 (2) MLJ 523), In re Swaminatha Iyer 1941 (1) STC 101 55 L.W. 758), In Re Subbarama Iyer see the analytical discussion on wilful submission of an untrue return at page 216 and foll. of N. R. Raghavachariar, "Sales Tax in Madras" (Law Weekly Publication) and also page 163 of V. Sundara Vyas, "The Madras General Sales Tax Companion" and Sethuraman, "The Law of Sales Tax in India", pages 94 -95, "wilful submission of untrue return".