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2019 (10) TMI 881 - HC - VAT and Sales TaxBest Judgement assessment - rejection of books of accounts - assessee had been subjected to best judgment assessment on trading in wood/timber and manufacture and sale of packing boxes - opportunity of cross examination of the persons from whom the inquiries were made behind the back - HELD THAT:- It is a settled principle in law that any adverse material that the assessing officer seeks to rely against the assessee must be first confronted to the assessee. In as much as, in the facts of the present case, that adverse material is in the shape of statements of third parties, the makers of the statement should have been first offered for cross-examination to the assessee - Even if the aspect of cross-examination is left aside for the moment, insofar as the inquiry that is sole basis of the adverse inference drawn against the assessee is found to have been conducted after the last date of the hearing in the assessment proceedings, no reliance whatsoever could have been placed on the same. The only course open to the assessing officer would have been to fix another date, in the assessment proceedings, and to allow the assessee time to respond to the adverse material that had been brought on record in the meanwhile. In absence of such course having been adopted, the assessment order that was based solely on such adverse material, could not be sustained - Revision allowed.
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