Transit seizure requires credible evidence of irregularity; complete documents and uncontroverted affidavits defeated the Department's case.

Seizure of goods in transit is not justified where the prescribed transit documents, declaration forms, invoice and authorisation accompany the goods and are found to be in order. Under the U.P. VAT framework, seizure is confined to cases where goods are not accounted for or the officer has reason to believe they are not traceable to a bona fide dealer. Here, the driver's statement and the consignor's uncontroverted affidavit supported the stated loading place, and no material showed document manipulation, fictitious consignor, or lack of bona fides. The seizure was therefore held unjustified and the revision failed.

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Issues: Whether seizure of goods in transit was justified when the prescribed documents accompanied the goods and the Department had no positive evidence to show that the goods were loaded from a different place or that the consignor was fake.

Analysis: Section 48 of the U.P. Value Added Tax Act, 2008 permits seizure only where the goods are not accounted for in the dealer's records or where the officer has reason to believe that the goods are not traceable to any bona fide dealer. Section 52 of the Act and Rule 54 of the U.P. Value Added Tax Rules, 2008 require transit documents, declaration forms, invoice and transit authorisation to accompany goods moving through the State. In the present case, the required documents were produced and found to be in order. The driver's statement and the consignor's affidavit supported the explanation that the goods had been loaded from Niwari, Madhya Pradesh, and both affidavits remained uncontroverted. No material was produced to establish loading from Jhansi, manipulation of documents, lack of genuineness of the transit forms, or absence of bona fides on the part of the consignor.

Conclusion: The seizure was not justified and the revision failed.

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