Rejection of accounts requires more than missing stock registers where books remain reliable and verifiable.

Books of account kept in the ordinary course of business and supported by verifiable entries could not be rejected merely because the assessee did not maintain the stock or manufacturing account contemplated by Rule 72(2) of the U.P. Sales Tax Rules. The assessee's karigar and job-card registers showed daily production, and no defect was pointed out in those records. Rule 72 does not prescribe a compulsory system of accounting or make non-compliance with that rule, by itself, a ground to discard otherwise reliable books. The stated principle is that absence of the specified stock register alone does not justify rejection of accounts that remain verifiable.

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Issues: Whether the assessee's books of account could be rejected merely because it did not maintain the stock or manufacturing account contemplated by Rule 72(2) of the U.P. Sales Tax Rules.

Analysis: The account books were found to have been kept in the ordinary course of business and to contain verifiable entries. The assessee had maintained karigar and job-card registers showing daily production, and no defect was pointed out in those registers. Rule 72 does not prescribe a particular system of accounting, nor does it provide that non-compliance with that rule by itself requires rejection of the accounts. Where the books are otherwise reliable and capable of verification, they cannot be discarded merely for want of the stock register contemplated by Rule 72(2).

Conclusion: The books of account could not be rejected solely for non-maintenance of the stock register under Rule 72(2), and the answer was in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered by holding that absence of the stock register did not, by itself, justify rejection of otherwise reliable and verifiable books of account.

Ratio Decidendi: Non-maintenance of a register required by an accounting rule does not justify rejection of accounts when the books are otherwise kept in the ordinary course of business and are verifiable.

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