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TMI Blog1988 (7) TMI 413X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... appeal before the Sales Tax Tribunal. The Tribunal allowed the appeal of the Revenue in part, inasmuch as the taxable turnover was determined at ₹ 42,000/-. The assessee has now come up in this revision against the order passed by the Sales Tax Tribunal. 4. The learned counsel for the assessee urged that there were no good and valid grounds in existence on which the Sales Tax Tribunal could sustain rejection of assessee's account books or estimate the taxable turnover at ₹ 42,000/. 5. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, I find there is substance in the argument advanced on behalf of the assessee. 6. The account books of the assessee were initially rejected on several grounds by the. Sales Tax Officer. The Sales Tax Tribunal, however, sustained the rejection of account books on two grounds : (i) on 23-2-1980 when the business premises of the assessee were surveyed, the account books were not made available to the Survey Officer, (ii) on physical verification of the stock of Khand, during the said survey, stock of 125 quintals was found whereas according to the stock register, produced at the time of assessment, the stock was to th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rrect unless there are strong and sufficient reasons to indicate that they are unreliable. The accounts of an assessee cannot be disbelieved on suspicion, whim or fancy of the Asseessing Authority. Acceptance of accounts kept in usual course of business is the rule and their rejection is an exception which could only be for proper reasons. This is so, because rejection of account books has serious repercussions and it should not be done light heartedly at the pleasure of tax authorities who may have an occasion to deal with the assessment of an assessee. 11. At this stage, it is appropriate to refer to the findings of the Sales Tax Tribunal on which it sustained the rejection of assessee's account books. To put it in the words of the Tribunal, it observed : I am unable to accept the dealer's explanation. It has been clearly written that on this survey, the manufacturing work was found to be in progress and the business was being looked after at the time of this survey by the brother and father of the proprietor. That the business of the two firms no doubt is under separate constitution, yet the seizure of the some of the documents relating to this firm fr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... al position stated in the above case has been followed in a number of subsequent casts including in Shyamdas Mukutwala v. C. S T, 1979 UPTC 1379, Nomi Chand Jain v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, 1983 UPTC 547 and J. R. Rathan Bros, and Co. v. Commissioner of Sales Tax. 1983 UPTC 1156. 13. The findings of the Sales Tax Tribunal for rejecting the account books in the instant case have already been extracted earlier. The account books were rejected mainly on the ground that the same were not produced at the time of survey before the Surveying Officer. In view of the decisions referred above, the order passed by the Sales Tax Tribunal cannot be sustained. 14. That a part, the findings recorded by the Sales Tax Tribunal are otherwise not sustainable on merits. According to the Tribunal at least cane purchase Parchies cane purchase register and Pillai register should have been produced before the Surveying Officer, because the business was in progress not withstanding the absence of the assessee from the business premises. In the assessment order there is no finding that when the survey was made cane was being purchased and the relevant records including the cane purchase ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... it had been found that the same was withheld from the Surveying Officer with an ulterior motive to avoid detection of true state of affairs of assessee's business. In other words non-production of account books at the time of survey cannot be utilised as an excuse to reject the account books. In order to justify the rejection of account cooks there must be something more. 17. Now coming to the alleged discrepancy in the stock of Khand, the charge is that the stock found at spot was less than actually found recorded in the stock register, which was produced at the time of assessment. The case of the assessee is that the Surveying Officer noted the stock on the basis of his estimate, without actually counting the bags in which Khand was stored. In the orders passed by the sales tax authorities there is no indication about the number of bags which were found at the time of survey. The learned counsel for the assessee pointed out that Khand is an exciseable commodity and for that purpose the assessee is required to maintain certain registers prescribed under the Excise Act and Rules framed thereunder. It was stated at Bar by the learned counsel that the Excise Au ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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