Revisional power in best-judgment assessment cannot replace one permissible estimate with another absent illegality or material basis.

Revisional power under section 21 of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act is limited to correcting illegality, impropriety or irregularity prejudicial to the Revenue, and it cannot be used to substitute one possible best-judgment estimate for another where the assessing authority has adopted a permissible view. An enhancement is justified only if the original assessment is arbitrary, capricious, or unsupported by relevant facts or principles. As no material showed that 15 per cent gross profit was the normal rate in the trade, and the revisional notice gave no basis for that figure, the higher estimate could not be imposed and the revision was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the revisional authority under section 21 of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957 could substitute the assessing authority's best-judgment estimate by adopting a 15 per cent gross profit rate without material showing that the original assessment was illegal or improper.

Analysis: Revisional power under section 21 is confined to examining whether the subordinate order suffers from illegality, impropriety, or irregularity prejudicial to the Revenue. Where the assessing authority has taken one of two possible views in a best-judgment assessment, that choice cannot be treated as illegal or improper merely because another view is possible. Interference is justified only if the assessment is arbitrary, capricious, or based on failure to consider relevant facts or principles. In the present case, there was no material showing that a 15 per cent gross profit was the normal rate in the business line concerned, and the revisional notice itself did not disclose any basis for that figure.

Conclusion: The revisional authority had no warrant to enhance the gross profit estimate to 15 per cent; the revision was therefore unsustainable and the assessee succeeded.

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