Pre-planned tax evasion device supports penalty where goods are intercepted without proper reporting and documents.

Penalty under the Punjab Value Added Tax Act was sustained where intercepted goods were not accompanied by required documents and were not properly reported at the check-post. The authorities accepted a factual finding that the reporting record was generated only after interception, the dealer failed to rebut the detaining officer's report, and no account books or other supporting evidence were produced to establish genuineness. On those facts, the process was treated as a pre-planned device to evade tax, and the penalty was held valid even though tax liability had not yet matured.

---

---

Issues: Whether penalty under section 51(7)(c) of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005 was leviable on the facts found, where the goods were intercepted without proper reporting and the authorities recorded a finding of a pre-planned attempt to evade tax.

Analysis: The checking officer intercepted the trucks and found that the goods were not accompanied by the required documents and had not been reported at the relevant check-post as required under section 51 of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005. The assessee later produced documents and relied on prior reporting at another check-post, but the detaining authority found that the information at that check-post had been generated only after the interception at Balongi. The assessee did not successfully challenge the detaining officer's report, did not produce supporting account books or evidence of genuineness, and the factual finding of a pre-arranged scheme to evade tax was affirmed by the lower authorities.

Conclusion: Penalty under section 51(7)(c) of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005 was validly imposed, and the challenge to the penalty failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the authorities record a supported factual finding that a dealer used a pre-planned device to evade tax and manipulated the reporting process, penalty is sustainable even before the tax liability actually matures.

---