1961 (4) TMI 58

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.... dealer registered under the Punjab General Sales Tax Act. He filed returns of his sale turnovers for the four quarters of the financial year ending on March 31, 1955, and like- wise, for the four quarters of the financial year ending on March 31, 1956. In respect of each year the Sales Tax Assessing Officer served three successive notices on him on March 7, 1958, April 4, 1958, and August 18, 1959, requiring him to attend with the documents and other evidence in support of his returns. In the last of the notices mentioned above it was stated that on failure to produce the documents and other evidence mentioned, the case would be decided "on best judgment assessment basis". The petitioner did not comply with any of the notices, but after th....

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....d to assess to the best of his judgment the amount of the tax due from the dealer."   The contention of the petitioner is that at the date of the notice last mentioned the Sales Tax Authorities had no right to proceed to make any best judgment assessment as the three years within which only such assessment could be made had expired before then. It seems to us that the contention of the petitioner is well founded. The learned counsel for the respondent, the assessing authority, also frankly conceded that he found it difficult to contend to the contrary.   Sub-section (4) of section 11 deals with the case of a dealer who has furnished returns in respect of a period and has thereafter been asked to produce evidence to support t....

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....petitioner, had to furnish returns quarterly. The rules define "return period" as "the period for which returns are prescribed to be furnished by a dealer." It would therefore appear that when sub-section (4) of section 11 talks of "returns in respect of a period", that refers in the case of the petitioner to the quarters in respect of which he submitted the returns. We then come to this that the three years within which the authority could proceed to make the best judgment assessment had to be counted from the end of each quarter in respect of which returns had been filed.   Now the last of the quarters in respect of which the petitioner filed his returns ended on March 31, 1956. So the assessing authority could not proceed to make....