Suppression of material facts can justify cancellation of sales tax registration and defeat a challenge based on prior intimation.

Section 12(17) of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act permits cancellation or amendment of a registration certificate for good and sufficient reasons after hearing the dealer. Where the record shows that registration was obtained by suppression of material facts or by production of a false document, the authority may validly cancel the certificate. An earlier communication that was only an intimation to pursue other remedies does not amount to a binding adjudication, and a plea of impermissible review will not succeed where the corrective action is taken to undo fraud or falsehood. The operative principle is that fraud defeats reliance on the earlier communication and supports cancellation of the registration.

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Issues: Whether the registering authority was justified in cancelling the registration certificate under section 12(17) of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1957 for good and sufficient reasons, and whether the cancellation was vitiated as an impermissible review of an earlier communication.

Analysis: Section 12(17) empowers the prescribed authority to cancel, modify or amend a registration certificate for good and sufficient reasons after giving the dealer an opportunity of being heard. The dealer had been heard, and the material on record showed that the rent agreement produced before the registering authority was not signed by the alleged lessor and had been accepted on the dealer's own admission that it was signed by some other person. On that basis, the authority concluded that a relevant document had been produced despite knowledge of its falsity and that the dealer had obtained registration by suppression of material facts. The earlier communication issued by the predecessor was treated as only an intimation to pursue other remedies and not as a binding adjudication. Even otherwise, an order procured by fraud or falsehood can be recalled or cancelled, and the authority's statutory power was not barred in these circumstances.

Conclusion: The cancellation of the registration certificate was valid, supported by good and sufficient reasons, and was not an impermissible review.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition failed because the registration certificate had been obtained on the basis of a false or misleading material fact, and the statutory cancellation was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: Suppression of a material fact or production of a false document furnishes good and sufficient reason to cancel a registration certificate under the statute, and fraud defeats any plea against the exercise of such corrective power.

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