ASSISTANT COMMERCIAL TAXES OFFICER, FLYING SQUAD, COMMERCIAL TAXES Vs. NATIONAL ENGINEERING INDUSTRIES LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant revision petition has been filed by the petitioner-Department, under section 86 of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1994 (in short, "the Act") against the order dated June 18, 2004 passed by the Rajasthan Tax Board, Ajmer (in short, "the Board") in Appeal No. 94 of 2004, dismissing the appeal preferred by the petitioner-Department and upholding the order of the learned Deputy Commissioner (Appeals) (for short, "the DC(A)") whereby the DC(A) deleted the penalty amounting to Rs. 1,04,317 imposed under section 78(5) of the Act by setting aside the order passed by the learned assessing officer (in short, "the AO"). The said appeal was admitted on the following substantial question of law:

(2.) The counsel for the respondent appeared before the petitioner and stated along with reply reiterating the facts and further submitted that all necessary bills and vouchers were duly available with the driver, however on account of inadvertence only two columns remained to be filled in, as such these columns were immaterial. The respondent further pleaded that both the consignor as well as the consignee are reputed industries and will not indulge in such kind of activities particularly when all other columns were filled in and other relevant documents were found. However, the petitioner was not satisfied with the explanation so filed by the respondent observing that the declaration form ST-18A has its own sanctity and there were instances of re-using the same and since the respondent was not able to prove by acceptable evidence as to why the material columns could not be filled in, therefore by rejecting the explanation the penalty at 30 per cent amounting to Rs. 1,04,317 was levied on the total value as per the bills amounting to Rs. 3,47,721.

(3.) Dissatisfied with the imposition of the penalty so imposed, the respondent preferred an appeal before the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals). Detailed explanation was submitted by the respondent and it was pleaded that on account of clerical error, only two columns remained to be filled in and that when all other columns have been found to be in order, and bills have been found to be neither fabricated nor forged and such bills have been found to be genuine, therefore, merely because only two columns were not filled in, the penalty ought not to have been imposed. The DC(A) being satisfied with the explanation furnished by the respondent, deleted the penalty vide order dated August 16, 2003.