Transport document defects alone cannot sustain seizure or penalty without proven tax evasion intent.

Transport document defects did not, by themselves, justify seizure or penalty under the West Bengal Sales Tax Act and Rules. The tribunal noted that Rule 214C and section 73 required prescribed documents for despatch of goods, but an undated invoice was not false merely because it lacked a date, and the challan number was already present on the record. As material non-compliance and any clear intention to evade tax were not established, the seizure under section 68 could not stand. The penalty orders under section 71 were therefore set aside in favour of the assessee.

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Issues: Whether the seizure and penalty were valid where the transport documents carried by the petitioner were said to be defective for want of date on the invoice and challan number in the consignment note, and whether such defects established a violation of section 73 of the West Bengal Sales Tax Act, 1994 read with rule 214C of the West Bengal Sales Tax Rules, 1995.

Analysis: Rule 214C governed despatch of goods from West Bengal to outside the State and, with section 73, required the transporter to carry the prescribed documents, including a bill or cash memo, a way-bill or similar particulars, and the relevant title document. The invoice was not dated, but a document cannot be treated as fake merely because it is undated unless it is shown not to belong to the party issuing it. The record also showed that challan number 267 was already present, and the revision order did not state that the challan was produced for the first time. On these facts, the Court found no established non-compliance with the transport requirements and no clear basis to infer an intention to evade tax from the omission of the date or the consignment-note defects. The contention of seizure under section 68 therefore did not survive.

Conclusion: The seizure and penalty were held invalid, and the orders passed under section 71 were set aside in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A seizure for alleged defects in transport documents cannot be sustained unless the authority establishes both material non-compliance with the prescribed document requirements and a clear intention to evade tax; an undated invoice or minor documentary omission, by itself, is insufficient.

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