Anti-evasion registration and record-keeping rules upheld as valid incidental taxing measures and reasonable business regulation.

Registration and record-keeping requirements imposed on a miller who was neither a wholesale dealer nor a retail dealer were upheld as valid anti-evasion measures under the sales tax law. The court treated registration, maintenance of accounts, and related declarations as incidental and ancillary powers within the State Legislature's taxing competence under Entry 54 of List II, because such measures help prevent tax evasion rather than create a separate levy. The requirements were also held to be reasonable regulatory restrictions that did not substantially fetter the right to carry on business or hold property. The constitutional challenge therefore failed, and the provisions were sustained.

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Issues: (i) Whether the impugned provisions requiring registration and maintenance of registers by a miller who is not a wholesale dealer or a retail dealer were within the legislative competence of the State Legislature. (ii) Whether those provisions imposed unreasonable restrictions on the petitioner's right to carry on business or to hold property.

Issue (i): Whether the impugned provisions requiring registration and maintenance of registers by a miller who is not a wholesale dealer or a retail dealer were within the legislative competence of the State Legislature.

Analysis: Entry 54 of List II confers power to legislate on taxes on sale or purchase of goods, and the power to tax includes incidental and ancillary measures necessary to make the levy effective and to prevent evasion. Provisions requiring registration, maintenance of accounts, and related declarations were viewed as measures directed to checking evasion of sales tax rather than as an independent attempt to tax a non-dealer.

Conclusion: The impugned provisions were within legislative competence and the challenge on that ground failed, in favour of the Revenue.

Issue (ii): Whether those provisions imposed unreasonable restrictions on the petitioner's right to carry on business or to hold property.

Analysis: The requirement to maintain registers and furnish declarations was held not to fetter the business of the miller in any substantial manner; instead, it regularised the business and assisted lawful tax administration. In the context of anti-evasion measures, such requirements were treated as reasonable restrictions, especially where similar preventive measures such as search, seizure, and confiscation had been accepted as permissible.

Conclusion: The provisions were not violative of the petitioner's rights and the constitutional challenge on this ground failed, in favour of the Revenue.

Final Conclusion: The petition was rejected in entirety, and the impugned registration and record-keeping provisions were upheld as valid anti-evasion measures under the sales tax law.

Ratio Decidendi: A taxing legislature may enact incidental and ancillary measures to prevent evasion of tax, and such preventive requirements are valid if they amount only to reasonable regulatory restrictions and not to an unconstitutional burden.

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