TMI Blog1968 (1) TMI 48X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer was transferred to the file of the Commercial Tax Officer for the reason that the turnover when properly determined was likely to exceed Rs. 40,000. The Commercial Tax Officer then issued a notice to the petitioner and substituted new figures for the turnover determined by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer in consequence of which the petitioner became liable to pay enhanced sales tax. From the order made by the Commercial Tax Officer, in that way, the petitioner preferred an unsuccessful appeal to the Deputy Commissioner and the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, and in this revision petition Mr. Srinivasan for the petitioner presented a two-fold argument. The first was that the Commercial Tax Offi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ure of flour. The petitioner, in his statement of objections, asserted that the basis which the Commercial Tax Officer proposed to adopt was inaccurate, and that for the hulling operations and the flour mill as much as 75 per cent. of the total electrical energy consumed by the petitioner had been expended. But in his order with respect to the period commencing on 1st April, 1960, and ending on 31st March, 1961, in which the Commercial Tax Officer discussed whether any part of the turnover had escaped assessment he said this: "Enquiries were made regarding escapement of turnover and show cause notice has been issued and served on the party on 1st May, 1965. To the show cause notice, Sri Abdul Gaffar Khan has replied that consumption of el ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... so for what reasons. It is true as contended by Mr. Shantaraju for the department, that a best judgment assessment such as the one made by the Commercial Tax Officer, to some extent, necessarily involves guess-work, and that since the Commercial Tax Officer did inform the petitioner that it would be reasonable to think that a moiety of the electrical energy was consumed by the oil-mills, it became the duty of the petitioner to prove the unsuitability of the formula on which the Commercial Tax Officer depended. It is well-settled that although a best judgment assessment must be founded in some measure on guess-work, that guess-work must be rational and reasonable. And it would be so only if it rests upon some material which could support ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r the authority which proposes to make that assessment to assign reasons for the conclusion that there has been an escape of taxable turnover. That the burden of establishing that some part of the turnover escaped assessment was on the department is of course clear, and that, that is so, was not controverted by Mr. Shantaraju who, however, asserted that once the basis for reaching the conclusion that the turnover had escaped assessment had been disclosed to the dealer it became the dealer's duty to produce materials in displacement. The acceptance of this argument would mean that all that the authority exercising the power under section 12-A has to do is to tell the dealer that his income has escaped assessment, and that it would then becom ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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