Penalty for missing prescribed import documents under sales tax law can follow where unexplained breach supports inference of tax evasion.

Importing goods without the prescribed declaration in Form XXXI and accompanying documents under section 28-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948 constituted a statutory contravention attracting penalty under section 15-A(1)(o). The text states that trip sheets and way bills alone did not satisfy the requirement, and that penalty was not automatic merely because documents were missing. However, where no satisfactory explanation was offered for the absence of the declaration, cash memo, bills and challans, the surrounding circumstances could justify an inference of intention to evade tax. On those facts, the penalty was sustained and the revision was rejected.

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Issues: Whether penalty was rightly sustained for importing goods without the declaration in Form XXXI and other prescribed documents under section 28-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948, and whether an intention to evade tax could be inferred from the absence of those documents.

Analysis: Section 15-A(1)(o) of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948 permits penalty where import or transport of goods is in contravention of section 28-A. The statutory scheme requires carriage of the prescribed declaration and accompanying documents at the check post. Mere production of a trip sheet and way bills did not satisfy the statutory requirement, since the declaration in Form XXXI, cash memo, bills and challans were absent. Penalty is not automatic merely because documents are missing, but where no satisfactory explanation is offered for the absence of the prescribed declaration and accompanying papers, the surrounding circumstances may justify an inference of evasion.

Conclusion: The absence of the prescribed documents constituted a contravention of section 28-A, and the facts justified the inference that the import was made with an intention to evade tax. The penalty was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The revision was rejected and the Tribunal's order sustaining the penalty was maintained.

Ratio Decidendi: Penalty for importing goods without prescribed documents is sustainable where the statutory breach remains unexplained and the surrounding facts reasonably support an inference of intent to evade tax.

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