TMI Blog2023 (3) TMI 493X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... business, ought to have weighed with the Department to initiate an enquiry against the said persons to ascertain whether they had suppressed any turnover for the purposes of taxation. They could have done this simultaneously with a protective assessment against the petitioner assessee. The fact that they did not do so ought to have operated against them in an adjudication of the petitioner's case. On the contrary, the Intelligence Officer as also the Tribunal appears to have discarded this valuable evidence and mechanically presumed that the data contained in the slips recovered from the premises of the petitioner pertained to the business of the petitioner. Since there are no justification in the Intelligence Officer as also the Tribunal having discarded the evidence tendered by Sri. Balachandran, Sri. K.I. Sreenivasan and Sri. K.V. Abdul Rasheed, we cannot uphold the reasoning of the Tribunal, in the orders impugned before us, as correct or rational. Further, as the assessment orders for the assessment years 2009-10 and 2010-11 were based on the penalty orders for the said years, and the said penalty orders in this judgment are set aside, the impugned order of the Tribunal ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... before the First Appellate Authority. During the pendency of the said appeals, and as a condition for the grant of stay, the petitioner also deposited an amount of Rs.20,00,000/- with the Department. Thereafter the appeals were disposed by the First Appellate Authority by an order dated 29.5.2013, partly allowing the appeals and remitting the matter back to the Intelligence Officer to reconsider the application of the petitioner on the seized material and to give reasons for the enhancement of penalties against the petitioner. Aggrieved by the said order of the First Appellate Authority, the petitioner carried the matters in further appeals before the Appellate Tribunal. By an order dated 30.8.2014, the Appellate Tribunal modified the order of the First Appellate Authority. The said order of the Appellate Tribunal was acted upon by the Intelligence Officer, who passed a modified order imposing penalties of Rs.2,020/- for the assessment year 2008-09, Rs.45,86,141/- for the assessment year 2009-10 and Rs.35,30,017/- for the assessment year 2010-11. 4. Against the modified order of the Intelligence Officer, the petitioner preferred a further appeal to the Deputy Commissioner (Appea ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... First Appellate Authority found that the penalty orders passed against the petitioner could not be legally sustained and proceeded to set aside the same. 5. Pursuant to the order of the First Appellate Authority, the petitioner approached the Department for refund of the amount paid as a condition for the grant of stay while the matter was pending before the First Appellate Authority on an earlier occasion. Consequent to a direction of this Court in W.P.(C).No.24012 of 2018, an amount of Rs.20,00,000/- that was paid by the petitioner was refunded to him vide an order dated 26.2.2019 of the Intelligence Officer. 6. The Department, being aggrieved by the order passed by the First Appellate Authority, carried the matter in appeal before the Tribunal. By the said time, the First Appellate Authority had also set aside the assessment orders passed against the petitioner for the assessment years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 since they had all been passed following the penalty orders, and the said penalty orders had been set aside by the First Appellate Authority. When the Tribunal came to consider the appeals against the penalty orders at the instance of the Department, the appeals ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... luation of the entire evidence, especially the affidavit and deposition of the witness to the inspection and that of the related Works contractor and also material evidence revealed from the recovered slips / diary went to show that the said slips / diary was not related to the Respondent herein (but to the above said Works contractor), so the transactions involved in the same could not be attributed to them and hence the imposition of penalty on them for the year 2009-10 2010-11 is liable to be deleted. 10. It is pertinent to note that the Respondent herein (if their claim that they were not dealers in Timber / wooden furniture, but engaged in sawing / job work of Timber / Wooden furniture were true to facts) were legally bound to keep all the records related to the receipt / issue of such Timber / wooden furniture viz. date of receipt, their quantity / value, collection of sawing / job works charges, date of issue of the finished Timber / furniture, their quantity etc. and also produce the same for verification by the officials of the Commercial Taxes Department, during the inspection to their place of business (or otherwise) or the officials of other departments concerne ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r the years 2009-10 2010-11 were deleted in the respective 1st appeals, for the lone reason that the penalty proceedings (on which the impugned assessment proceedings were rooted) were not in existence. Since the impugned proceedings of penalty under section 67(1) of the Act, in respect of the Respondent herein for the years 2009- 10 2010-11 are now found to be upheld, the consequential proceedings of assessment in respect of them, for the years 2009-10 2010-11 are also to be upheld and the findings in the respective 1st appeals are liable to be set aside. It is the legality of the impugned order of the Tribunal that we are called upon to examine in these Revisions. 7. We have heard Smt.M.K.Hajara, the learned counsel for the revision petitioner in all these O.T. Revisions and Smt.Jasmine, the learned Government Pleader for the respondent in all these O.T. Revisions. 8. On a consideration of the rival submissions, we find that these are cases where the assessment for the years 2009-10 and 2010- 11 were mechanically completed based solely on the findings contained in the penalty orders passed by the Intelligence Officer for the years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. T ..... 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