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2014 (9) TMI 465 - HC - VAT and Sales TaxImposition of penalty - inter-state sale of DEPB licences - fraud - Whether, in the facts and circumstances of present case, the Haryana Tax Tribunal, Chandigarh, has correctly passed the present order by holding that the impugned transaction is an inter-State sale when the Department has failed to show movement of goods from one State to another - Held that:- The plea of the appellant that there is no supporting evidence, to disbelieve and reject the registered dealer local sales allegedly made by the appellant and to turn those sales to inter-State sales, is again a misnomer. Not only the Assessing Officer, during reassessment proceedings, but even the first and the second appellate authorities have meticulously evaluated the entire facts and have come to a firm conclusion that sales of the DEPB licences made by the appellant during both assessment years, i.e., 2000-01 and 2001-02 are in fact inter-State sales, notwithstanding colour of RD sales having been given to such sales by the appellant. Even when reappraisal of the facts available on the paper book is made, result is no different. On August 1, 2000, a demand of ₹ 39,017 was raised vide debit note by M/s. Anuj Jain and Sons, (HUF) Delhi on M/s. Samsung Electronics India Ltd., Noida on account of service charges for arranging transfer of first four licences in the table as above. When the information given in the tabular form as above, is evaluated in this context, it transpires that value of these four licences was ₹ 1,30,35,637. Commission of M/s. Anuj Jain and Sons, Delhi in the shape of service charges turns out to be 0.30 per cent. It is, thus, clear that the service provider charged service charges for transfer of first four DEPB licences. So far as other two licences sold to M/s. Laxmi Enterprises, Delhi, are concerned, no particulars of service provider were supplied by the appellant. appellant had not shown any sale having been made by it to those parties from whom it had received these payments. Conversely, no payment had been received from the dealers to whom the sales of licences were alleged to have been made by the appellant - On perusal of the paper book, it becomes apparent that these sales were made by the appellant in fact directly to M/s. Samsung Electronics India Ltd., Noida and M/s. Laxmi Enterprises, Delhi in assessment year 200001 and to M/s. Honda Siel Cars India Limited, Noida in the assessment year 2001-02 and the purchasers shown in the original assessment order, viz., M/s. Krishna Enterprises for the assessment year 2000-01 and M/s. Sai Industries for the assessment year 2001-02 in fact were only names of traders which names were used as camouflage and subterfuge. All the circumstances including the transactions conducted through banking channels reveal that the payments were made direct to the appellant by M/s. Samsung Electronics India Ltd., Noida and M/s. Laxmi Enterprises, Delhi (for the assessment year 2000-01) and M/s. Honda Siel Cars India Limited, Noida (for the assessment year 2001-02) who were located outside the State of Haryana. It is further clear that intermediaries, viz., M/s. Krishna Enterprises and M/s. Sai Industries for the year 2000-01 and 2001-02, respectively had been interpolated by the appellant merely as masks to cover up direct sales made by it with dealers outside the State of Haryana. It may be pointedly noticed that during the reassessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer had found large scale fraud by the appellant. Nonetheless, he confined himself to institution of penalty proceedings in terms of section 8 of the State Act and section 9(2) of the Central Act. When the entire factual matrix with attending circumstances unfolds itself, it turns out to be a case of cheating right from the very beginning in which the appellant had clearly contrived and confabulated with M/s. Samsung Electronics India Ltd., Noida and M/s. Laxmi Enterprises, Delhi as also with M/s. Honda Siel Cars India Limited, Noida, to give colour of registered dealer sales to the inter-State sales by using names of M/s. Krishna Enterprises and M/s. Sai Industries, Faridabad as a subterfuge in defrauding and cheating the revenue. It is also clear that documents such as debit notes and ST-15 forms were contrived as valuable securities when these documents in fact were not even backed by the transactions which these documents projected to be representing. Thus, it is a case of forging of documents to represent non-existent fraudulent transactions, whereas actual transactions were different and distinct from these purported sales and in fact had nowhere been depicted in such documents. Decided against assessee.
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