SHANKER LAL Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A partnership firm by the name of Radhey Shyam Lal Bahadur got itself registered under the Sales Tax Act somewhere in 1969. In due course, it won an excise shop at an auction. The firm appears to have carried on the business of selling liquor in that shop. In due course, the Sales Tax Officer commenced proceedings for the assessment year 1969-70 and ultimately passed an assessment order levying a sales tax amounting to Rs. 55,840 on the firm Radhey Shyam Lal Bahadur. The assessed amount of tax not having been paid, recovery proceedings were initiated against the parties. A notice thereof was served on the petitioner Shanker Lal. He made an application to the Sales Tax Officer that he was not connected at all with the firm Radhey Shyam Lal Bahadur. He was never a partner in that firm. His name has been wrongly introduced. The recovery proceedings should hence be dropped against him. Finding no satisfactory response, the petitioner came to this Court and filed the present writ petition.

(2.) The sole submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner was that the petitioner had no connection with the firm. He was never its proprietor or its partner. He never carried on any business of that firm. He was an employee of some other firm Pati Ram Narain Datta in Nepal on a fixed salary.

(3.) In the counter-affidavit it has been stated that in the application for registration of the firm the petitioner's name and address was mentioned. The Sales Tax Officer, on coming to know that the petitioner-firm was carrying on an excise shop, enquired from the excise authorities the names of the partners of the firm. The reply received from the excise office confirmed the fact that the petitioner was also one of the partners in the business which was being carried on in the shop. The Sales Tax Officer had sufficient information in his possession on the basis of which he could proceed to assess the firm on the basis that the petitioner was also one of its partners.