TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1999 (4) TMI 593
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....tions 69 and 70 of the West Bengal Sales Tax Act, 1994 (the 1994 Act) and penalty imposed on applicant No. 1 in respect of the seized consignments under section 71 of the 1994 Act, were valid. The question of constitutionality or vires of sections 71, 68(1), 68(3) and 70(2) of the 1994 Act and rules 227 and 211 of the West Bengal Sales Tax Rules, 1995 (the 1995 Rules) was canvassed in the main application and the supplementary affidavit filed by the applicants. But at the time of hearing that question was given up. 2.. The case of the applicants is that it is an incorporated company which carries on, inter alia, the business of transportation of goods by air by using its own cargo aircrafts. Its registered office is at Bombay (Mumbai) with....
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....sent them before sales tax authorities. Goods are delivered to them after sales tax authorities endorse the documents and give clearance. If a consignee fails to submit papers and permits, the company does not remove the respective consignment from its warehouse until the consignee brings proper papers and permits. On January 9, 1998 respondent No. 3, Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Central Section, conducted a search under section 69 of the 1994 Act at the company's warehouse and made seizure under section 70 as per seizure receipt made over to the station manager of the company. The goods were not removed by respondent No. 3, but left in the custody of the station manager with instruction not to remove them without his permiss....
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....the respective consignments upon payment of respective penalties. A revision application was preferred against the order of penalty before respondent No. 2, Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Central Section. By order dated March 17, 1998 he modified the order of penalty and directed respondent No. 3 to release the goods of serial Nos. 1, 2, 10, 12, 26 and 27 of the seizure list, and he also reduced the total penalty to Rs. 93,250. Ultimately only five out of the seized consignments remained in the custody of the applicants, because the consignees of those goods did not come forward to pay the penalty and take their goods. 3.. The applicants are submitting that they have no liability to pay either any tax or any penalty in respect of....
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....uld be produced despite opportunity given. Section 71 does not lay down that penalty can be imposed only on the owner of goods. It can be imposed upon the person from whom goods are seized. For expeditious disposal of the matter, the proceeding for penalty was initiated against the person from whom the goods were seized, namely, the owner of the warehouse. The contentions of the applicants regarding vires of provisions of the 1994 Act and the 1995 Rules have been denied by respondents 1 to 4. 6.. Since the pleas of the applicants regarding vires of sections 68, 70 and 71 of the 1994 Act and rules 211 and 227 of the 1995 Rules have been abandoned, it is not necessary for us to consider them. In the order dated November 16, 1998 passed in ....
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....eized goods had been made available to the authorities. But before the present application was filed, some of the seized goods were released to the owners on payment of amounts of penalty imposed in respect of those goods. Such payments were made in terms of section 71(2) as a result of the intimation admittedly given to them by the applicant-company, which therefore clearly acquiesced to such payments. Hence the challenges now made to seizure and imposition of penalty are naturally confined to the five unreleased consignments. These five could not be released, because neither the applicant-company, nor those who are said to be the owners, came forward to pay the respective amounts of penalty, and because the former is not claiming either o....