Maheshwari Vidhyut Udhyog vs M.P. Commercial Tax Appellate Board and Others

Prakash Shrivastava, J.—This order will also govern the disposal of VAT Appeal No. 28 of 2012 since in these appeals the same questions of law have been raised which arise out of the common order passed by the Board. These appeals have been filed u/s 53 of the M.P. VAT Act, 2002 challenging the orders of the Board dated September 1, 2012 in respect of the liability under the Entry Tax Act.

In brief, the appellant is engaged in the business of sale and purchase of copper wire, copper scrape, insulating varnish, cotton tape, insulating PVC paper and also sale and purchase of mobile SIM recharge voucher in the branch shop. The business premises of the appellant was inspected by the officers of the Commercial Tax Department on December 23, 2006 and the documents were seized, and thereafter the inspection report was submitted by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer on June 15, 2007 disclosing the evasion of tax. The assessing authority on September 1, 2007 had passed the order of assessment imposing tax, against which the appellant had preferred appeal which was dismissed by the Deputy Commissioner, Commercial Taxes vide order dated October 17, 2008, against which the appellant had approached the M.P. Commercial Tax Appellate Board and the Board, vide order dated September 1, 2012, has dismissed the second appeal.

The learned counsel appearing for the appellant submits that the assessing authority has committed an error in making the assessment on the basis of best judgment assessment in the facts and circumstances of the present case.

Having heard the learned counsel for the appellant and on the perusal of the record, it is found that the issue which the appellant is raising before this court in respect of the error in doing the best judgment assessment has been dealt with in detail by the Board in the order dated September 1, 2012. The record reveals that the Board as well as the Deputy Commissioner, Commercial Tax, have found that the documents which were seized from the business premises of the appellant at the time of inspection, were later on manipulated by the appellant. It has been found that the documents seized by seizure Nos. 6, 8 and 9 were manipulated at the instance of the appellant and his clerk, for which a report was also made by the Commercial Tax Officer in the police station. It has also been noted that the appellant had not verified the account from the regular books of account. It has further been noted that the manipulation was done by the appellant to avoid the tax liability. The record also reveals that as per the scrutiny report, the seizure No. 6 was changed and at its place, diary and some loose papers of seizure Nos. 8 and 9 were enclosed and on these changed papers and diary the appellant and 2 witnesses have signed, which was admitted by them in their statement before the Assistant Commissioner.

We have perused the record and we are of the considered opinion that in the facts of the present case, no error has been committed by the assessing authority in doing the best judgment assessment specially when the accounts were not verified by the appellant from the regular books of account and the manipulation in the seized documents was done. In view of the detailed analysis by the Board and the conclusion arrived at by the Board, we find that the present appeals do not involve any substantial question of law.

The appeals are accordingly dismissed. Signed order be kept in the file of VATA No. 27 of 2012 and a copy thereof be placed in the file of VATA No. 28 of 2012.