Revisional powers cannot create original purchase-tax assessments or bypass limitation, and sales returns do not cover purchase transactions automatically.

Revisional power under sales tax law could not be used to create an original best judgment purchase-tax assessment after the statutory limitation had expired; it was confined to examining existing proceedings and correcting legality or propriety within the statutory scheme. The separate return requirements for sales and purchases were also treated as distinct, so filing a sales return did not automatically include purchase transactions where no purchase-tax return was filed. On that basis, the revisional orders relating to purchase tax could not stand, and relief was confined to the purchase-tax aspect.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Commissioner, in exercise of revisional powers under section 21 of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948, could frame an original best judgment assessment for purchase tax without being constrained by the statutory time limit; (ii) Whether filing a sales tax return in form S.T. VIII could be treated as including purchase transactions in the absence of a purchase tax return in form S.T. VIII-A.

Issue (i): Whether the Commissioner, in exercise of revisional powers under section 21 of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948, could frame an original best judgment assessment for purchase tax without being constrained by the statutory time limit.

Analysis: Revisional jurisdiction under section 21 is founded on the existence of pending or disposed of proceedings and is exercised to test legality or propriety of an existing record. Best judgment assessment is a positive act to be initiated under section 11 within the statutory framework and within the prescribed limitation. The Commissioner could examine records of proceedings already before the Assessing Authority and, where the statute permitted, correct an escaped assessment, but he could not create an original purchase-tax assessment in revision after the limitation period had expired. Revisional power could not be used to confer a fresh original jurisdiction on the Assessing Authority or to bypass the five-year bar applicable to proceedings for failure to file purchase tax returns.

Conclusion: The question was answered in the negative. The Commissioner could not frame an original best judgment purchase-tax assessment in revision beyond the statutory time limit.

Issue (ii): Whether filing a sales tax return in form S.T. VIII could be treated as including purchase transactions in the absence of a purchase tax return in form S.T. VIII-A.

Analysis: The scheme of the Act and the Rules treated sales and purchases as separate components for return-filing purposes, though they contributed to taxable turnover. Rules 20 and 25 required a registered dealer to furnish returns in the prescribed forms, including form S.T. VIII for sales and form S.T. VIII-A for purchases, as applicable. A sales return did not automatically initiate proceedings in respect of purchase transactions. Treating a sales return as covering undisclosed purchase transactions would nullify the statutory distinction between the two return forms and the separate procedural basis on which assessment under section 11 operated.

Conclusion: The question was answered in the negative. A sales tax return did not ipso facto include purchase transactions for assessment purposes in the absence of a purchase tax return.

Final Conclusion: The impugned revisional orders, so far as they related to purchase tax, could not stand and the petition succeeded on the purchase-tax aspect.

Ratio Decidendi: Revisional powers cannot be used to initiate an original assessment or bypass statutory limitation, and separate statutory return obligations for sales and purchases must be given effect according to the scheme of the taxing statute.

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