Suppression of turnover and corroborative records can justify best judgment assessment, extended limitation, and rejection of cross-examination objections.

Suppression of turnover may justify best judgment assessment where check-post extracts, bank records and information from purchasing dealers mutually corroborate escaped sales and purchases, and the assessee fails to produce primary accounts, weigh bills or credible proof supporting its explanation. A request for cross-examination does not vitiate the assessment unless real prejudice is shown and a material foundation is laid; estimation based on electricity consumption may be a permissible method, but it need not be the sole basis where stronger documentary material exists. Where nil or abnormally low returns conceal actual transactions, the extended limitation period can apply.

---

---

Issues: (i) whether the best judgment assessments based on check-post extracts, bank records and information from purchasing dealers were sustainable in the absence of account books and corroborative challenge by the assessee; (ii) whether denial of cross-examination and reliance on estimated turnover, including the electricity-consumption aspect, vitiated the assessment and the Tribunal's affirmance; (iii) whether the extended period of limitation could be applied in the presence of suppression of turnover.

Issue (i): whether the best judgment assessments based on check-post extracts, bank records and information from purchasing dealers and other material were sustainable in the absence of account books and corroborative challenge by the assessee.

Analysis: The assessments were founded on multiple pieces of material, including check-post records, bank accounts and information from purchasing dealers, which were mutually corroborative and showed suppression of sales and purchases. The assessee did not produce the accounts, weigh bills or other documentary evidence called for, and the plea that the records were destroyed in a fire was unsupported. In those circumstances, the authorities were entitled to make best judgment assessments on escaped turnover.

Conclusion: The assessment on best judgment basis was upheld and is against the assessee.

Issue (ii): whether denial of cross-examination and reliance on estimated turnover, including the electricity-consumption aspect, vitiated the assessment and the Tribunal's affirmance.

Analysis: Cross-examination is not an automatic right unless a real prejudice is shown and a material foundation is laid for such a request. The estimate based on electricity consumption was only discussed as a permissible mode in principle, but it was not the sole basis of the decision. The core basis remained the documentary and circumstantial material evidencing suppression, and no sufficient material was produced to dislodge that conclusion.

Conclusion: The complaint regarding cross-examination and estimation did not invalidate the assessment and is against the assessee.

Issue (iii): whether the extended period of limitation could be applied in the presence of suppression of turnover.

Analysis: The record disclosed suppression of turnover through nil returns and returns showing abnormally low turnover, while the actual transactions were detected through cross-verification with external records. In such a case, the extended limitation applied and the Tribunal's view on limitation required no interference.

Conclusion: The extended limitation was rightly applied and is against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The revisions were dismissed and the assessments confirmed, leaving the Revenue's action undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where suppression of turnover is established through corroborative external records and the assessee fails to produce primary accounts or substantiate its explanation, best judgment assessment and extended limitation are justified, and denial of cross-examination does not by itself vitiate the assessment.

---