9911796707
TMI Blog2003 (9) TMI 744X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... petitioner, the assessee, filed quarterly returns under the Bihar sales Tax Rules, 1976. In those quarterly returns, the petitioner showed its gross turnover as inter-State sales and paid the tax accordingly. After the period prescribed by section 16(4) of the Bihar Finance Act for filing revised returns had expired, the assessee made applications on March 1, 2002 copies of which are annexed as annexure 1 series to these writ petitions, along with what it called revised returns. As against the original stand taken in the returns that the sales were inter-state sales, the stand attempted to be adopted in the statement filed and the revised returns attempted to be filed was that the sales were intra-State sales. No material as such was produ ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... by adopting the position that its sales were the inter-State sales. No doubt, filing of returns or adopting a stand by the assessee in that return might not estop the assessee from establishing that as a matter of fact, the sales were not inter-State sales. But then, the burden would be on the assessee to show that the stand originally adopted by it in its return was on a mistaken basis or was the result of a mistake on facts or in law. For that, the assessee had to produce adequate materials before the assessing authority. Here, except the pleading that after the rendering of the decision of the Patna High Court in Luxmi Hardcoke Manufacturing Company case 1999 (1) PLJR 713, the assessee had realised that it had been mistaken in its unders ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... This necessarily resulted in the assessing authority having to proceed on the basis of the returns filed by the assessee and complete the assessment and hence there was no need to make any further enquiry into the matter. Once the assessing authority is held to have no right to entertain a revised return, obviously, there was no material other than the returns filed by the assessee on the basis of which alone the assessing authority could proceed. Tested from this angle, the position adopted by the assessing authority is fully correct and could not be held to be either illegal, without jurisdiction or even erroneous. 5.. When the decision in Luxmi Hardcoke Manufacturing Company 1999 (1) PLJR 713 was taken up in appeal to the Supreme Cou ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... aw, cannot be accepted. The assessing authority had the jurisdiction to treat the sale either as inter-State sale or as intra-State sale depending on the evidence before it. The finding arrived at by the assessing authority in that behalf cannot be said to be one without jurisdiction or one beyond the jurisdiction of the assessing authority. There is also no rule or principle which precludes the assessing authority from accepting the returns filed by an assessee and accepting the stand adopted by an assessee relating to a particular transaction or series of transactions it had entered into. No doubt, if the assessing authority was not satisfied with the position adopted by the assessee, it was entitled to make an investigation and come to i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ling materials leading to a different conclusion. On an examination of the various decisions brought to our notice by learned counsel for the assessee, what we find is that the question whether a particular sale transaction is inter-state or intra-State sale would depend upon the facts that are established before the assessing authority. As observed by the Supreme Court in its judgment in appeal against the decision in Luxmi Hardcoke Manufacturing Company 1999 (1) PLJR 713, the question had to be decided on the facts of the case. Unless a finding of fact rendered by the assessing authority is so perverse or unreasonable that no authority trained in law could have come to such a conclusion, this Court cannot interfere. Of course, this court ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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