TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2008 (8) TMI 811
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....sa Value Added Tax Act, 2004 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") bearing TIN No. 21251203437 and under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 bearing registration No. CUICW-2678, the border check-gate officers have collected tax under the Act and entry tax under the Orissa Entry Tax Act, 1999 on the goods purchased from outside the State illegally on an estimated prevailing market price. The petitioner is the same in these five writ petitions. In W.P. (C) No. 9032 of 2008, the petitioner has made a reference to the other four writ petitions. Since the issues involved in all the five writ petitions are interconnected, they are disposed of by this common judgment. The case of the petitioner, in a nutshell, is that he carries on business in purchase and sale of mosaic chips, white cement, limestone powder, colour oxide, oxalic acid, turpentine oil, coloured stone polish, granite stone, ceramic tiles, sanitaryware, cement glass strip, marbles on wholesale as well as on retail basis under the trade name of "Satyam Construction" at Purighat, Cuttack. He is a registered dealer under the Act as well as under the Central Sales Tax Act and he has been filing regularly the return from the date ....
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.... has jurisdiction to assess the petitioner. He strongly opposed the contention of the petitioner that he is neither assessable by the STO nor by the assessing authority of the range. For the purpose of convenience, it is necessary to first deal with the petitioner's second ground of challenge. According to him, till the order of assessment was passed since he was not granted the certificate of registration under the Act as has been prescribed under sub-section (5) of section 25 of the Act read with sub-rule (1) of rule 19 of the Rules and no TIN number was assigned neither the assessing authority of the range nor the S.T.O. has jurisdiction to initiate and complete the audit assessment of the petitioner. For better appreciation of the fact, the averments made in paragraph 1.1 of the writ petition are quoted below: "That besides, the petitioner humbly submits that the impugned order of assessment vide annexure 1 to this writ application is also liable to be quashed as the petitioner has not yet been granted the certificate of registration under the OVAT Act as has been prescribed in sub-section (5) of section 25 of the OVAT Act, 2004 read with subrule (1) of rule 18 of the OVA....
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....air and undesirable. This practice is not permissible and should be deprecated. It is more so that while invoking the writ jurisdiction of the court seeking discretionary relief where the petitioner should always come with clean hands, clean mind and clean objective. In that view of the matter, the second limb of argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner that neither the Sales Tax Officer, Cuttack-I Circle, Cuttack nor the assessing authority of the range has jurisdiction to initiate and complete the audit assessment for the tax period from April 1, 2005 to March 31, 2006 of the petitioner does not merit consideration and hence fails. Now the question which survives for consideration by this court is whether the STO, Cuttack-1 Circle, Cuttack has jurisdiction to assess the petitioner for the impugned tax period. According to the first ground taken by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the STO who has completed the impugned assessment order is not the assessing authority as has been prescribed under sub-rule 12(b) of rule 34 of the Rules. As per the petitioner's own averment made in other four writ petitions, i.e., [W.P. (C) No. 15401 of 2005, W.P. (C) No. 10337 ....
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.... of the range is the competent authority to assess the petitioner, and the STO, who has passed the impugned assessment order, has no jurisdiction to pass the impugned order. A similar view has also been taken by this court in the case of Dash Agency v. Sales Tax Officer [2007] 9 VST 482. In course of hearing, learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that a certificate of registration in form VAT-103 has not been issued to the petitioner even though he is treated to be a registered dealer and assigned a TIN number by the opposite parties. On the other hand, learned counsel for the Revenue submitted that non-issuance of certificate of registration does not create any bar for the petitioner to pay the tax. Issuance of certificate may be withheld due to non-furnishing of information by the petitioner as required by the statute. Therefore, unless the petitioner furnishes the information as required under the statue, the certificate cannot be issued. We have heard rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties. Rule 15(8) of the Rules requires that every dealer, who is deemed to be a registered dealer under sub-section (5) of section 25 of the Act, has to ....