Sale in transit and detention of goods upheld where documents and enquiry showed no genuine transit transaction.

Goods intercepted with two sets of documents led the authorities to treat the movement as not a genuine sale in transit under section 6(2) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956. The detention under section 31(6) of the Haryana Value Added Tax Act, 2003 was supported by recorded reasons to suspect absence of proper documents and possible tax evasion, and the enquiry, driver's statement and inspection report were treated as corroborative. The High Court accepted the concurrent factual findings, held that no substantial question of law arose, and upheld the detention, tax and penalty.

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Issues: Whether detention of goods and levy of tax and penalty were justified under section 31(6) of the Haryana Value Added Tax Act, 2003, and whether the transaction was a protected sale in transit under section 6(2) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956.

Analysis: The material on record showed that the goods were intercepted with two sets of documents, the authorities found that the goods had been loaded from the dealer's godown at Faridabad, and the second set of invoice and GR dated the same day supported the view that the transaction was not a genuine sale in transit. The detention provision required reasons to suspect either absence of proper and genuine documents or an attempt to evade tax, and the authorities recorded such reasons on the basis of enquiry and the documents produced. The appellate forum found no reason to disbelieve the contemporaneous enquiry or the statement of the driver as corroborated by the inspection report. The High Court held that these were concurrent findings of fact and no substantial question of law arose.

Conclusion: The detention, tax and penalty were upheld, and the appeal failed.

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