Independent scrutiny of dealer records required before disallowing sales return turnover; assessment remitted for fresh consideration.

A quasi-judicial assessing authority must independently examine books of account and supporting documents produced before it and cannot disallow sales return turnover merely because those records were not shown to the Enforcement Wing during audit. The court held that relevant material available on record must be considered on merits after due opportunity, and that reliance solely on the Enforcement Wing report without independent judgment was improper. The assessment order was set aside and the matter remitted for fresh consideration, with permission to produce documents and an opportunity of hearing.

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Issues: Whether the assessment order disallowing sales return turnover could be sustained when the assessing authority did not independently consider the records and documents produced by the dealer and instead acted on the Enforcement Wing report.

Analysis: The writ petition challenged the reassessment and the rejection of the rectification application. The governing principle applied was that an assessing authority, acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, must independently examine the books of accounts and supporting documents produced before it and cannot reject them merely because they were not produced before the Enforcement Wing at the time of audit. The Court relied on the settled position that where relevant records are available, they must be considered on merits after giving due opportunity. On the facts, the respondent had failed to consider the subsequent production of documents and had not exercised independent judgment.

Conclusion: The assessment order was set aside and the matter was remitted to the respondent for fresh consideration after permitting the petitioner to produce the documents and after affording an opportunity of hearing.

Ratio Decidendi: A quasi-judicial assessing authority must independently evaluate the material produced before it and cannot disallow a claim solely because the records were not shown to the Enforcement Wing, especially where the assessee is given an opportunity to place the documents before the authority.

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