Sales tax exemption cannot be denied for procedural form defects when substantive notification conditions are otherwise proved.

Sales tax exemption under a notification cannot be refused merely because the dealer did not file prescribed monthly return forms or produce declarations at assessment, where the notification itself imposed only the stated substantive conditions. Procedural forms and return requirements are only aids to the exemption scheme and do not become additional eligibility conditions unless the law expressly says so. Compliance with the notification may be proved by other evidence if the essential conditions are otherwise satisfied. A revisional authority may also consider declarations produced in revision where that material is necessary to test the assessment's legality.

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Issues: (i) Whether exemption under the sales tax notification could be denied for non-filing of the prescribed monthly return forms and non-production of declarations at the assessment stage. (ii) Whether exemption under the notification required strict compliance only with the notification itself, or could also be denied despite proof by other evidence that the notification conditions were fulfilled. (iii) Whether the revisional authority could refuse to consider declarations produced during revision.

Issue (i): Whether exemption under the sales tax notification could be denied for non-filing of the prescribed monthly return forms and non-production of declarations at the assessment stage.

Analysis: The notification granted exemption on two conditions only, namely, sale to a registered dealer against a written declaration for export outside the State and export within the prescribed time. The forms and returns prescribed under the Act were only procedural aids for carrying out the exemption scheme and could not be treated as an additional substantive condition for entitlement to exemption. Actual production of the declarations before the assessing authority was not the sole method of proving compliance with the notification.

Conclusion: The exemption could not be refused merely because the dealer had not filed the prescribed forms or produced the declarations at assessment.

Issue (ii): Whether exemption under the notification required strict compliance only with the notification itself, or could also be denied despite proof by other evidence that the notification conditions were fulfilled.

Analysis: Strict compliance was required with the notification, but that requirement extended only to the conditions actually imposed by the notification. It did not extend to furnishing the monthly return forms or producing the declarations in the manner prescribed by the departmental forms. Where the essential conditions of the notification were otherwise established, exemption could not be denied merely for non-observance of those procedural forms, and other evidence could be used to prove fulfilment of the notification conditions.

Conclusion: The dealer was entitled to establish compliance with the notification by other evidence, and exemption could not be denied on the ground of failure to comply with the procedural form requirements.

Issue (iii): Whether the revisional authority could refuse to consider declarations produced during revision.

Analysis: Revisional jurisdiction is not confined in all cases to the bare record if further enquiry is necessary for effective exercise of that jurisdiction. The authority had power to admit and consider additional material, especially where the declarations had earlier been produced and rejected on the supposed footing that their late production was fatal. A blanket refusal to consider the declarations in revision was therefore unjustified.

Conclusion: The revisional authority was required to consider the declarations and was not justified in refusing them.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered in substance in favour of the assessee, and the exemption claim could not be defeated by insistence on procedural formality beyond the notification's actual conditions.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a tax exemption notification prescribes only specified substantive conditions, procedural return or form requirements cannot be treated as additional mandatory conditions unless the statute expressly makes them so, and revisional authority may consider additional material necessary to determine the legality of the assessment.

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