TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1969 (7) TMI 103
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....s to registered dealers of goods intended for resale in Orissa. The Sales Tax Officer suspected the genuineness of the declarations furnished by the assessee and called upon him to produce the purchasing dealers from whom he is said to have obtained declarations in support of such claim. But the assessee pleaded his inability to produce them. The assessing officer therefore held that the declarations furnished by the assessee are not true and correct as required under rule 27(2) of the Orissa Sales Tax Rules, 1947, and refused to allow the deductions claimed. On appeal by the assessee, the Assistant Commissioner, Sales Tax, was of the view that since the assessee had obtained signatures of the purchasing dealers in his presence, he was not ....
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....ohammad & Co. v. State of Orissa I.L.R. 1963 Cutt. 517. and the second one involved a question of fact. He, therefore, disallowed those two questions and referred the third one to this court. That question is in the following terms: "The department having issued the certificate of registration and some persons holding the declarations as such, is it competent for the assessing officer to refuse to accept such a declaration merely on account of the fact that the same appeared to be fictitious?" 2.. We may quote here the relevant provisions of the Act under which the deductions in question are claimed and they are section 5(2)(A)(a)(ii) of the Act and rule 27(2) of the Rules. Section 5(2)(A)(a)(ii) is in the following terms: "5. (2)(....
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....on him........Though the initial burden of proving deduction is on the assessee he may be said to have discharged that burden by saying that he sold the goods to a person holding a certificate of registration. It would then be for the department to lead evidence to show that the holders of these certificates of registration were not registered dealers in the eye of law as defined in the Act. But one cannot go beyond this limit and say that the taxing authorities are completely estopped from challenging the correctness of the entries made in the registration certificate. If the intention of the Legislature was that every entry in the certificate of registration granted to a person shall be conclusive of the facts stated therein, the Legislat....
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....s, so the assessee-dealer could not be penalised. As shown earlier in my general observation this view is wrong. The learned Assistant Commissioner's finding in this respect cannot be upheld." The learned Tribunal thus upheld the finding of the assessing officer that the purchasing dealers were fictitious persons. It is strenuously urged on behalf of the assessee that the Tribunal has wrongly thrown the onus on the assessee to prove that the purchasing dealers are not fictitious persons. His contention is that it is the department which issues certificates of registration to dealers; and if a person produces such a certificate of registration, the assessee who is the selling dealer is entitled to act upon it and it is not for him to enquire....
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....f the fact that the burden to prove that they were genuine has been wrongly cast on the assessee. There is undoubtedly considerable force in this contention. But. unfortunately, the assessee has allowed that finding to become final, inasmuch as the correctness of this finding has not been challenged in the present references. The relevant question suggested by the assessee to the Tribunal and which has been accepted by him assumes that the purchasing dealers are genuine persons and the question posed for reference is whether declarations given by such purchasing dealers can be rejected merely on account of the fact that the declarations appear to be fictitious. In other words, the question referred to this court relates only to the genuinen....