1962 (10) TMI 46

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..... nts of old motor cars. He is also a dealer in motor tyres and tubes. No assessment was made on the assessee in respect of the turnover covered by the hire-purchase agreements in the original assessment dated 21st October, 1955. The Deputy Commercial Tax Officer however revised the assessment purporting to act under section 16(1) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959, and computed the turnover of the assessee for the year 1954-55 at Rs. 4,68,515-37 nP. This was on the footing that the turnover relating to hire-purchase agreements had escaped assessment when the original assessment was made. The assessee preferred an appeal against the reassessment order to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, Madras-II, who confirmed the revised assessm .....

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..... und that such turnover was not properly includible having regard to the decision of the High Court in the matter. The contention that was urged by the assessee before the Tribunal was that the assessing officer having focussed his mind on the question whether a particular amount of turnover should be assessed or not, and having reached a decision on the matter, it will not be open to the same officer or to a succeeding officer to go into the question afresh invoking section 16 of the Act. The materials on which the Tribunal has found that the original officer excluded the turnover relating to hire-purchase transactions knowingly but erroneously are these. The Tribunal refers to the fact that in the assessment year 1953-54 the officer had sp .....

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..... sactions were not within the ambit of the Act. We are unable to agree with the view taken by the Tribunal that there was a conscious exclusion of the hire-purchase transaction in the first assessment against the assessee. There has therefore been an actual escapement of tax by reason of the failure of the officer to take into account the entire taxable turnover and to compute it properly. The department was therefore right in making a reassessment on the assessee acting under section 16 of the Act. The Tribunal has found that the turnover relating to the hirepurchase agreements was properly assessable even at the time of the first assessment. This view is well founded on the evidence on record. It is not necessary for us to consider the que .....

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