2012 (9) TMI 905

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....tan Cables Limited, Cherlapally. The question of law presented for consideration in these revisions filed under section 22(1) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 (for short, "the 1957 Act"), is whether even in the absence of a provision under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (for short, "the CST Act"), for forfeiture of excess tax collected by a registered dealer, forfeiture could be ordered by recourse to the provisions under the 1957 Act. The relevant facts in brief may be noticed. The Commercial Tax Officer, Nacharam, during his visit to the administrative office of the assessee on different dates, verified the sale invoices issued by the assessee during April, 1996 to September, 1996 and noticed that the assessee coll....

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....the respondent-assessee (in all the revisions). It requires to be noticed that the Supreme Court in India Carbon Ltd. v. State of Assam [1997] 106 STC 460 (SC); [1997] Indlaw SC 2003 relying on the Constitution Bench judgment in J. K. Synthetics Ltd. v. Commercial Tax Officer [1997] 106 STC 1 (SC); [1997] Indlaw SC 2185 and following the majority view of the Constitution Bench held that there being no substantive provision in the CST Act for levy of interest on delayed payments of CST, orders by the Revenue authorities levying interest on delayed payment of CST (under provisions of section 35A of the Assam Sales Tax Act, 1947), are unsustainable and allowed the appeals. The court observed that having regard to the observations in Khemka ....

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....in the CST Act authorizing forfeiture of excess tax collected by a dealer but not remitted to the Revenue, no forfeiture could be ordered by the Revenue by reference to provisions of the State Sales Tax Act, in this case the 1957 Act. Sri P. Balaji Varma, learned Special Government Pleader for Commercial Taxes, however refers to the judgment of a learned Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Leo Engineering (India) v. State of Kerala [2006] 146 STC 393 (Ker), to contend that the forfeiture ordered by the assessing authority and as confirmed by the Appellate Deputy Commissioner was not liable to be interfered with on the ground that the order of forfeiture was beyond the power of the assessing authority, notwithstanding that forfeitu....