9911796707
TMI Blog1988 (3) TMI 415X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... that no tax is payable in respect of the sale of rice corresponding to the purchases from the aforesaid persons. Even before the assessment proceedings were completed the Commercial Tax Officer visited the premises of the assessee, seized certain documents and after scrutiny held that the claim of the purchase from the aforementioned persons was bogus. According to the Commercial Tax Officer the sales were merely paper sales and in order to avoid payment of tax at the first point the assessee manoeuvred to obtain certain bills and produced the same as if he has purchased the rice from the aforementioned dealers. In view of the above, the Commercial Tax Officer called upon the assessee to discharge the burden that lay on him that the rice ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d. The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in the purported exercise of revisionary powers under section 20 of the Act cancelled the orders of the Appellate Deputy Commissioner and restored the orders of the Commercial Tax Officer levying penalty. The ground specified by the Commissioner in his order is that enquiries were made by the department and a statement was recorded from one Shyamalarao, proprietor of Phani Enterprises, where he denied the genuineness of the sales. It is also said that a statement recorded from Narendra Babu, proprietor of Sai Lakshmi Rice Traders, disclosed that only paper bills were issued without sales. Relying on the above information the Commissioner revised the order of the Appellate Deputy Commissioner and res ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... following terms: "Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, or in any other law, a dealer in any of the goods liable to tax in respect of the first sale or the first purchase in the State shall be deemed to be the first seller or first purchaser, as the case may be, of such goods and shall be liable to pay tax accordingly on his turnover of sales or purchases relating to such goods, unless he proves to the satisfaction of the assessing authority that the sale or purchase, as the case may be, of such goods had already been subjected to tax under this Act." The above provisions render an assessee liable to prove that the tax on the first sales was duly paid. This initial burden is sought to be discharged by the assessee in the prese ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... must be held that the assessee had discharged the initial burden that lay on him and in that view quashed the orders of the Commercial Tax Officer. The revisionary powers of the Commissioner under section 20 were pressed into service in this case and the order of the Appellate Deputy Commissioner was revised without following the elementary course of justice to ensure that the assessee is not called upon to suffer a consequence on the basis of information gathered behind his back. The least that the Commercial Tax Officer should have done in this case was to confront the assessee with the statements recorded from the persons on whom reliance was placed, tender those persons for the cross-examination of the assessee and based on such evide ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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