Agency claim for turnover exclusion fails where no positive proof shows coal was purchased for principals and freight was separately billed.

A dealer claiming commission-agent status to exclude coal purchases and inward freight from turnover must produce positive evidence of agency, such as purchase orders, bilti, accounts, or comparable material. Mere absence of direct proof that freight was paid on behalf of principals, or separate invoicing of freight, does not remove it from trading turnover where the assessee imported and sold coal on its own behalf. On the record, the agency claim failed and the freight exclusion was held unsustainable, so the assessment was restored and the Tribunal's contrary view was set aside.

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Issues: (i) Whether the dealer had established that it acted as a commission agent and not as a principal purchaser of coal; (ii) Whether inward freight charged separately in invoices was liable to be excluded from turnover.

Issue (i): Whether the dealer had established that it acted as a commission agent and not as a principal purchaser of coal.

Analysis: The record showed no purchase orders, bilti, accounts, or other material to prove that the coal was purchased on behalf of brick-kiln owners. The assessing authority had found that the coal was imported by the assessee on its own behalf for further sale, and the Tribunal did not disturb that finding on any supporting evidence. In the absence of positive evidence, the claim of agency could not be accepted and the Tribunal's contrary view was unsustainable.

Conclusion: The assessee failed to prove that it was acting as a commission agent.

Issue (ii): Whether inward freight charged separately in invoices was liable to be excluded from turnover.

Analysis: Separate charging of freight in the invoices, by itself, did not establish that the freight was paid on behalf of the principals or that it was outside the trading turnover. Where the assessee failed to prove the agency arrangement and the freight was in fact paid by the assessee in the course of its own imports, the amount remained part of turnover. The Tribunal's exclusion of freight was held to be based on no material and therefore perverse.

Conclusion: Inward freight was not excludible from turnover.

Final Conclusion: The revisions were accepted, the Tribunal's orders were set aside, and the assessment orders, as affirmed by the first appellate authority, were restored.

Ratio Decidendi: A dealer claiming exclusion of inward freight from turnover on the basis of agency must prove, by positive material, that the purchases were made on behalf of principals; mere separate billing of freight is insufficient, and a finding excluding freight without such proof is perverse.

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