9911796707
TMI Blog2009 (11) TMI 866X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... i registered in the State of Maharashtra under the Central Sales Tax Act as well as under the local tax Act. The company has regional offices at Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata. The regional offices are assessees under the respective State Sales Tax Act. In the course of business, it is stated that the recorded audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs and VCDs are sent from the head office at Mumbai to the regional offices for further sales in retail. It is a specific case of the petitioner that insofar as the Chennai regional office is concerned, there is no local purchase of blank audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs and VCDs. The assessments with regard to the regional offices were completed up to 20022003 and the returns and accounts were submitted for assessment for the year 2003-2004. The petitioner returned a total turnover of Rs. 1,43,71,106.29 and taxable turnover at Rs. 1,38,07,547.73. The respondent-Department took up the assessment and issued summons dated August 4, 2004 for production of accounts. The summons were served on the petitioner on August 9, 2004 to appear in person and produce the books of account on August 23, 2004. The petitioner by letter dated August 20, 2004 requested time up to D ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... present and produced records. In the last of the notice, it is stated that several other documents are yet to be received and certain details required by the Department have not been provided. According to the petitioner, the Department, while issuing notice one after another, was aware of the petitioner's plea that many records are at Mumbai held up due to centralized audit and accounting resulting in some delay in finalizing the assessment in the present case. The plea of the petitioner is a bona fide one. It is not in dispute that the petitioner did comply with the requests of the Department and furnished documents and sought for time to produce the balance sheet and other statutory records. This is evident from the letter dated March 5, 2005 addressed to the respondent-Commercial Tax Officer. It is stated therein that the petitioner did not purchase any goods in the State of Tamil Nadu. All the purchases were made by the head office at Mumbai and they were periodically transferred to the regional office at Chennai as well as the other regional offices at Delhi and Kolkata. It is also stated that they have forwarded a copy of the pre-assessment notice to the head office at ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e the same in time. It is the stand of the respondent-Department that the petitioner did not take steps to segregate the transaction of other branches and clarify the transaction pertaining to Chennai branch. The specific case of the respondent-Department is that the books of account have not been properly furnished and explained and therefore, the respondent-Department had to resort to best judgment method of assessment. The learned counsel for the respondent-Department submits that if the assessee or his authorised representative had taken pains to explain the turnover of the Chennai region by excluding the transaction of other regional offices as well as the head office by cogent material, certainly the assessing officer would have approached the issue on the basis of the records. The non-submission of the relevant records, forced the respondentauthorities to adopt the best judgment assessment method. At the time of final hearing of the case, Mr. R. Venkataraman, learned senior counsel appearing for Mrs. Lakshmi Sriram, learned counsel for the petitioner pointed out that the petitioner-company has its head office at Mumbai and regional offices at Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata. Al ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he time of finalisation of the assessment. As rightly pointed out by the learned counsel Mrs. Lakshmi Sriram appearing for the petitioner, the non-production of records was only due to the preparation of balance sheet at the head office at Mumbai and therefore, the petitioner requested for reasonable time to produce records, but it was not heeded to by the respondent-Department. Instead, the hearing was posted at short intervals thereby depriving the petitioner of sufficient opportunity to represent their case and produce the records. When the relevant materials and records were available in the head office at Mumbai and the assessee seeks time to show the transaction pertaining to the Chennai branch alone, the respondent-Department should have granted reasonable time to produce the records, particularly, when the assessee has shown inclination and co-operated with the Department by producing certain records readily available with them. The documents that have been furnished before this court prima facie go to show that each regional office is a separate and distinct entity and assessed separately. This vital fact should be gone into by the respondent-Department on the merits of t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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