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TMI Blog2010 (12) TMI 1090X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... AO V.V.S. AND RAMESH RANGANATHAN, JJ. ORDER:- The order of the court was made by V.V.S. RAO J. M/s. Sai Tirumala Papers Private Limited, the petitioner in this writ petition filed on August 19, 2010, assails the final assessment order, under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (hereafter, the CST Act ), of the Commercial Tax Officer, Vengalaraonagar Circle, Hyderabad, (hereafter, CTO II), dated March 12, 2010. The petitioner is a registered dealer under the Value Added Tax Act, 2005 (VAT Act) on the rolls of the Commercial Tax Officer, Bhongir Circle (hereafter, CTO I), the second respondent herein. During 2009-10, the petitioner shifted its office from the factory premises within the jurisdiction of CTO I to Hyderabad within the jurisdiction of CTO II. The petitioner approached this court directly ignoring the alternative remedy under section 31 of the VAT Act read with section 9(2) of the CST Act. In such circumstances this court does not, ordinarily, exercise its discretionary jurisdiction. At the time of preliminary arguments on August 31, 2010, the counsel, however, made the point to deviate from the normal rule. As the counsel is right that the case involves on ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f Rs. 2,26,179. The petitioner then sent a letter dated March 31, 2010 enclosing five duplicate copies of counterfoils of C forms and allegedly sought rectification of the assessment order under rule 60 of the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Tax Rules, 2005 (the VAT Rules, for brevity), in vain. Default in payment of the assessed tax led to recovery notices, dated June 28, 2010 and October 8, 2010 being issued, followed by a notice for recovery of tax from third parties under section 29 of the VAT Act. A notice dated July 17, 2010 was issued to the petitioner s banker, namely, State Bank of India, Balanagar Branch. In these certiorari proceedings, the petitioner seeks an order to quash the assessment order dated March 12, 2010, under the CST Act, for 2006-07 and for further directions to CTO II to levy concessional rate of tax on the turnover of Rs. 19,38,034 based on the counterfoils of three declaration forms available with the petitioner. We have the counter-affidavit of Ms. G. Sumathi, the incumbent CTO II. We also have on record the counter-affidavit of Sri K. Venugopala Rao, the officer who held the position as CTO I during the period from August 11, 2009 to May 14, 2010. On ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ms on August 16, 2007 along with a letter, dated August 13, 2007 seeking E1 forms required for making transit sales, which were issued on the same day. In April, 2010, the petitioner approached the office informing that three C forms submitted were available in the record and requested to transfer them. On being informed, the entire record was transferred to CTO II. The petitioner furnished a copy of the letter dated August 13, 2007 along with copies of the enclosures that he verified the documents as to the authenticity of acknowledgement of the staff and wrote the letter, dated April 5, 2010 to the first respondent stating that the C forms furnished by the petitioner were misplaced. After the writ petition was filed, the action taken by CTO I and the result thereof, in his own sworn statement reads as under: After the filing of the writ petition, this respondent instructed his staff to trace the said C forms. They could not trace them out. The record assistant who received the C forms was transferred to Miryalaguda. He was requested to go-over to office of this respondent to help this respondent to trace out the said C forms. After a thorough search they were found in another ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of C forms, had sent a communication on April 5, 2010 and, thereafter, the misplaced C forms have been traced. In view of this, the application filed by the petitioner on March 31, 2010, enclosing duplicate copies of the counterfoils, ought to have been taken into consideration for rectifying the omission under rule 60 of the VAT Rules. Per contra, the Special Counsel for Commercial Taxes opposed the writ petition on the ground that the petitioner has an alternative remedy; the petitioner filed the instant writ petition with considerable delay; and the xerox copies of duplicate counterfoils or duplicate counterfoils of C forms, are not sufficient compliance with the requirement of law. An analysis of the impugned assessment order, and a perusal of the relevant files, would show the following. In the return in CST VI, the petitioner disclosed CST sales during 2006-07 of Rs. 97,75,848. This includes inter-State sales against C forms (Rs. 82,55,119). After scrutiny, CTO II issued a notice dated July 10, 2009 informing the petitioner that, as required under rule 12 of the Central Sales Tax (Andhra Pradesh) Rules, 1957 (the CST Rules, for brevity), C forms are required to be file ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... mitted. The CTO II, having no power to review the assessment order, did not take any action and initiated recovery proceedings under section 29 of the VAT Act as stated supra. The petitioner requested to withdraw the notice under section 29 of the VAT Act. Again the two xerox copies of duplicate C forms submitted vide letter dated June 13, 2007, and three C forms submitted vide letter dated August 13, 2007, were enclosed. On July 28, 2010 the authorized signatory addressed another communication wherein it was stated that they had produced copies of the letters dated June 13, 2007 and August 13, 2007, with the office seal acknowledging submission of three C forms, before the CTO I, and that he had addressed letter bearing No. CST/2006-07, dated April 5, 2010 to CTO II informing him that three C forms were acknowledged by his office, that they were found misplaced and, therefore, they were not enclosed with the assessment file for 2006-07, and that efforts were being made to trace the C forms. The documents and communications referred to hereinabove are found in the assessment file for 2006-07. Curiously the letter bearing Rc No. El/ 29/2009 dated January 8, 2010 by CTO I to CTO I ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Swamy, the then record assistant. As he was working at the office of CTO, Miryalaguda, he was summoned to Bhongir. Statedly, he made a search for two days and found the C forms in E1 and E2 issue registers along with application for issue of statutory forms. Sri Swamy gave a letter on September 14, 2010 to that effect. This is mentioned in the counter-affidavits filed by CTO I and CTO II. Thus a case is sought to be made out that the record assistant acknowledged the C forms along with two letters on June 13, 2007 and August 13, 2007, and kept it in a wrong register. The fact is that they were not entered in the inward register, and the El and E2 registers are not placed before this court. The file bearing No. A/31/2010 (action taken record of CTO I) reveals this. There is another unnumbered file (correspondence record containing 16 pages). This deal with the request of the petitioner s authorized signatory to send C forms to CTO II and the office copy of the letter, dated April 5, 2010 by CTO I to CTO II informing that the C forms were acknowledged and they were misplaced in the office. As a first step before considering the merits of the petitioner s case, we would like ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 06-07 (CST), dated December 29, 2008 inviting objections with regards the proposal to tax net turnover of Rs. 74,42,749. It was mentioned therein that the dealers are not eligible for any exemptions since they did not file the required details and documentary evidence. In response thereto, the petitioner sent a letter being Reference No. STPPL/Form-C/01/2006-07 dated August 27, 2008 enclosing fifteen C forms in respect of sales effected to fifteen (15) purchasers in Chennai, Bangalore and Pondicherry. These do not include any C forms in respect of inter-State sales effected to M/s. National Traders or M/s. ASA Paper Stores, Chennai. (d) The CTO I issued notice being Declarations/2006-07/CST, dated July 10, 2009 to the petitioner informing that as per rule 12 of the CST Rules, declarations in form C or F or the certificates in forms E1 or E2 shall be furnished to the prescribed authority within three months after the end of the period to which the declarations or the certificate relates to. Therefore the petitioner was requested to file declarations in forms C/F within three (3) days. There was no response from the petitioner nor any representation of the petitioner to CTO I cl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... en by the CTO on November 8, 2010. The correspondence beginning from the letter of the petitioner dated September 19, 2010 till the letter transferring the files to CTO II ought to have been in the same file which they call registration file. Curiously, a separate file was run which obviously shows that an attempt is made to compile a file after filing of the case. (g) After receiving the registration file and assessment files, CTO II issued a show-cause notice on February 9, 2010 proposing to tax the interState sales at a higher rate. A show-cause notice dated September 8, 2010 was issued. Inter-State sales of paper products of Rs. 43,33,994 was proposed to be taxed at four per cent and an amount of Rs. 39,21,125 was proposed to be taxed at 10 per cent. The former was covered by C forms, and the latter was not covered. A show-cause notice was received by a representative of the petitioner on February 10, 2010. In reply, the petitioner submitted a letter No. STPPL/Form C/2009-10, dated February 15, 2010 enclosing four C forms relating to the sales made to M/s. Shree Packers, Excel Packagings, Bhargav Packagings, Mano Packers and Latha Industries. The two sales made to Chennai pu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... his is a bane of democracy. No country can survive for long if the public officeholders (who are negligible in number in comparison with the population) become corrupt. Rampant corruption may lead to serious consequences. We are not saying this with reference to this case only. But when the court is concerned with a case of this nature, not dealing with it firmly is not proper. Therefore, we summoned all the files and examined them thoroughly. The original C forms which are allegedly now traced due to the search made by the record assistant (Junior Assistant) have also been compiled as a file being A/31/2010 of the office of CTO II. On verification, we are convinced that even to a naked eye, the signature of the Director in the C form does not tally with one another. We have our own doubts about the C forms. This also requires a thorough enquiry. competent authority. As we are of the view that a thorough enquiry should be conducted, we refrain from making further observations which may tend to prejudice the enquiry. We also observe that nothing precludes the Commissioner, Commercial Taxes or the Government of Andhra Pradesh to transfer these officials who acted in a manner ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... should be prosecuted expeditiously so that the majesty of law is upheld and the rule of law vindicated. It is the duty of the judiciary to enforce the rule of law and, therefore, to guard against erosion of the rule of law. 56. The adverse impact of lack of probity in public life leading to a high degree of corruption is manifold. It also has adverse effect on foreign investment and funding from the international monetary fund and the world bank who have warned that future aid to underdeveloped countries may be subject to the requisite steps being taken to eradicate corruption, which prevents international aid from reaching those for whom it is meant. Increasing corruption has led to investigative journalism which is of value to a free society. The need to highlight corruption in public life through the medium of public interest litigation invoking judicial review may be frequent in India but is not unknown in other countries. . . Of late, the atmosphere is thick everywhere with talk of large scale corruption in public offices. This is a bane of democracy. No country can survive for long if the public officeholders (who are negligible in number in comparison with the populat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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