Best judgment assessment must rest on relevant material; conjectural turnover estimates and legal error invite revisional correction.

Best judgment assessment of escaped turnover must rest on relevant material and a fair estimate with a reasonable nexus to the facts; some guesswork is permissible, but a mechanical application of one shop's concealed turnover ratio to another shop without independent support is capricious and arbitrary, and such an assessment cannot stand. Where revisional jurisdiction is confined to questions of law, interference is warranted if the Tribunal confirms an assessment reached through a legally impermissible approach, because that confirmation itself involves an error of law. The document states that the impugned assessments were therefore liable to be set aside and the revisional court was competent to correct the legal error.

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Issues: (i) Whether the best judgment assessment of escaped turnover was sustainable when it was made by applying a percentage of concealed turnover in one shop to another shop without relevant material. (ii) Whether the High Court's revisional interference was warranted under the provision confining jurisdiction to questions of law.

Issue (i): Whether the best judgment assessment of escaped turnover was sustainable when it was made by applying a percentage of concealed turnover in one shop to another shop without relevant material.

Analysis: The expression "best of his judgment" requires an honest estimate based on relevant material and surrounding circumstances. Some element of guess-work is permissible, but the assessment cannot be dishonest, vindictive, capricious, or a wild surmise. The existence of secret accounts in one place did not justify assuming parallel secret accounts in the other shop, still less fixing escaped turnover by mechanically applying the same ratio without independent material supporting the estimate.

Conclusion: The assessment was capricious and arbitrary and was rightly set aside.

Issue (ii): Whether the High Court's revisional interference was warranted under the provision confining jurisdiction to questions of law.

Analysis: The revisional jurisdiction extended only to cases where the Tribunal had decided erroneously, or failed to decide, a question of law. Since the assessment was made without relevant material and by a legally impermissible approach, the Tribunal's confirmation involved an error of law within that jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The High Court acted within jurisdiction in interfering with the Tribunal's order.

Final Conclusion: The impugned assessments could not stand because they were not founded on a lawful best judgment estimate, and the revisional court was competent to correct the legal error.

Ratio Decidendi: A best judgment assessment must be based on relevant material and a fair estimate with a reasonable nexus to the facts; an arbitrary or purely conjectural estimation amounts to an error of law open to revisional correction where jurisdiction is confined to questions of law.

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