Goods transport notices require prima facie enquiry into documents before alleging tax evasion or wilful contravention.

A check-post authority must make a prima facie reasonable enquiry into accompanying documents and surrounding circumstances before alleging wilful contravention or tax evasion in goods transport. Where documents showed commission sale in one instance and movement from branch to head office for export in another, mere interception of the goods was insufficient to support a finding of evasion. The owners and persons truly affected by the notices were not strangers and could challenge them as aggrieved persons. On that basis, notices issued on an unsupported assumption of irregular transport and wilful contravention were treated as without jurisdiction and illegal.

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Issues: Whether the petitioners, as owners and persons interested in the goods, had locus standi to challenge the notices issued to the drivers, and whether the notices alleging wilful contravention of section 44 and evasion of tax were without jurisdiction and illegal.

Analysis: The transport in question was supported by documents showing, in one case, that the goods were sent for commission sales and, in the other, that the goods were moving from branch to head office for onward export. The check-post authority was required to make at least a prima facie and reasonable enquiry and to satisfy itself that the transport involved goods liable to tax and that there had been a deliberate attempt to evade tax. A mere interception of goods, without consideration of the relevant documents and surrounding circumstances, was insufficient to found a conclusion of evasion or wilful contravention. The petitioners, being the owners of the goods and the real persons affected by the action, were not mere strangers and were entitled to seek relief.

Conclusion: The petitioners were persons aggrieved and the impugned notices, having been issued on an unsupported assumption of irregular transport and wilful contravention, were without jurisdiction and illegal.

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