1968 (12) TMI 78

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....rcial Tax Officer, and Ramasetty was the Commercial Tax Officer who issued notices under section 14(3)(a) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, which was then operating in the area with which we are concerned, calling upon the dealer to produce evidence in support of his returns. One of the members of the petitioner's family who was carrying on the business, to which the orders of assessment related, appeared before Ramasetty and produced evidence which Ramasetty called upon the dealer to produce and on the production of that evidence, he made the impugned orders of assessment. He purported to make them under section 14(4) of the Act. From those orders of assessment, the petitioner appealed to the Assistant Collector, who dismissed them. There were ....

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....the notices under section 14(3)(a) were issued by Ramasetty he issued those notices by reason of the fact that he was not satisfied with the correctness or completeness of the returns produced by the dealer. The power and the jurisdiction to issue a notice under section 14(3) becomes available to the concerned assessing authority only when he is satisfied that he could not accept the returns produced by the dealer as correct and complete without the production of further evidence which he may call upon the dealer to produce before him. When that notice is issued, the dealer is under a duty to produce under clause (b) of section 14(3) the evidence which he is so called upon to produce and when he fails to do so, the assessing authority acqui....

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....hus clear that no best judgment assessment under sub-section (4) is possible until that assessment is preceded by the notice properly issued under clause (a) of sub-section (3) and there is disobedience to that notice. Now, in the cases before us, the notices under section 14(3)(a) were issued by Ramasetty when he was not a Commercial Tax Officer and before he became one on 6th April, 1960. So, the opinion which he formed under section 14(3)(a) that the returns produced by the dealer could not be accepted either as correct or complete without the production of further evidence which the dealer was called upon to produce was not an opinion formed under section 14(3)(a) since he was not the assessing authority when that opinion was formed. T....