Rejection of account books requires a clear finding that sales, purchases, or consumption records are not verifiable or reliable.

Account books cannot be rejected merely for absence of a cash book, ledger, intimation of the firing period, or non-production of coal vouchers where contemporaneous registers and vouchers still make sales, purchases, and consumption verifiable. The High Court noted that the assessee maintained multiple records, including stock, daily sale, cash memo, and coal purchase registers, and that no finding showed the transactions or coal use to be unreliable or disproportionate to brick production. On that basis, rejection of the books for both years was unsustainable, and the revisional order was set aside.

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Issues: Whether the assessee's account books for the assessment years 1972-73 and 1975-76 were liable to be rejected on the grounds of non-maintenance of cash book and ledger, non-intimation of firing period, and non-production of coal vouchers.

Analysis: The assessee maintained several contemporaneous registers, including pathi, bharai, stock, brick and coal, daily sale register, cash memo, and coal purchase vouchers. Rejection of the accounts could not be sustained merely because cash book and ledger were not maintained, unless it was found that the sale and purchase transactions were not verifiable from the records kept. Likewise, failure to intimate the firing period was not a relevant ground for discarding the books when the sale and purchase of bricks remained verifiable from the maintained registers. The absence of coal vouchers was also insufficient, particularly when the authority itself noted their maintenance and recorded no finding that coal consumption was unverifiable or disproportionate to brick production.

Conclusion: There was no material to reject the assessee's account books, and the rejection of the books for both years was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The revisions were allowed, the revisional order was set aside, and the assessee succeeded on the question of law regarding rejection of its account books.

Ratio Decidendi: Account books cannot be rejected unless the authority records a finding that the underlying sales, purchases, or consumption reflected in the records are not verifiable or are otherwise unreliable.

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