SRINIWAS JIWANRAM Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present petition is in respect of disallowance of the petitioners' claim to exemption from sales tax in respect of sales amounting to Rs. 24,150 made to Chandmal Agarwala who help a Registration Certificate under Bhowanipore Circle in Calcutta. I find from the previous assessment orders in respect of the present petitioners, that their books have always been maintained in a very satisfactory manner and that they always produced satisfactory evidence in respect of sales to registered dealers, sales of exempted goods and sales to places outside West Bengal. Even in respect to the period in question when the Commercial Tax Officer made his original assessment, he found that the gross turnover had been correctly given in the returns except for a small amount of Rs. 6,556-5-3 which did not matter, because the sale was made to a registered dealer and therefore it did not affect the taxable turnover. Similarly, sales of exempted good were checked and verified and so were sales to registered dealer. A details statement of this had been produced by the petitioners and declarations in proper forms were produced of all such sales. So the claim was found to be in order and allowed. This was on 10th March, 1949. Soon after that the Commercial Tax Officer made enquiries about the sales amounting to Rs. 24,150 made to Chandmal Agarwala a registered dealer of Bhowanipore, who was reported to have left the charge and to be untraceable. So a notice in From IX was issued on the petitioners asking them to show cause why the assessment should not be increased as the declaration was unsatisfactory. In his revised assessment order dated 2nd July, 1949, the same Commercial Tax Officer increased the balance "A" on two grounds namely :- (i) that the Commercial Tax Officer was not satisfied that the sales were really made to Chandmal Agarwala as the declarations could not be verified, and (2) that the Commercial Tax Officer should allow deduction on account of sales to registered dealers only when he was satisfied that the purchases have been duly accounted for by the alleged purchasing dealers, as otherwise dishonest dealers would make fictitious claim showing certain sales to have been made to registered dealers who are since untraceable.

(2.) THE factor which influenced the Commercial Tax Officer in coming to this revised assessment appears to have been that the purchasing dealer was untraceable and so the tax on the corresponding sales by him was unrealisable. Besides, the petitioners had not given any clue to enable the Commercial Tax Officer to trace out the purchasing dealer.

(3.) ON going through the record I find that an enquiry had been made at the Commercial Tax Officer's office, Bhowanipore, and it was found that the signature of the purchasing dealer Chandmal Agarwala on the declarations in question differed materially from the signature on the application for registration of the purchasing dealer. The Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes before whom the petitioners went on appeal found from this that the declarations had been manufactured dishonestly by the petitioners and he even went to the length of adding one thousand rupees to the petitioners' taxable turnover evidently as a penalty, and even suggested that the petitioners should be prosecuted for manufacturing a false declaration.