2015 (11) TMI 1142

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....tunity of showing cause against the proposal to complete the assessment on best judgment basis. 2. I have heard Sri. Rajesh Narayan Iyer, the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Sri. Liju V. Stephen, the learned Government Pleader appearing for the respondents. 3. This writ petition presents yet another instance where an assessee has come knocking on the doors of this court, challenging an assessment order passed under a taxing statute. Such instances have become frequent in recent times and, it is not always that this court, while exercising its discretionary powers under Art.226 of the Constitution of India, can tell an assessee off at the gates, asking him to avail the alternate remedy under the respective statute. Frightenin....

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....turns, and providing him with an opportunity to file a fresh return, or for producing documents and accounts to prove the correctness of the return filed, within a period of 15 days from the date of notice. Thereafter, if no return is filed within the time granted, or the documents sought for are not produced, the revenue authority is expected to issue a fresh notice to the dealer intimating him of his decision to proceed with a best judgment assessment under S. 25 of the KVAT Act. This latter notice is essentially in the nature of a show cause notice, asking the dealer to show cause as to why the assessment should not be completed on best judgment basis. For the opportunity provided to the dealer to be reasonable and meaningful, the time g....

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....respondent assessing authority shall complete the assessment in relation to the petitioner afresh, after affording him an opportunity of hearing in accordance with the directions in this judgment. The fresh order of assessment shall be passed within a period of one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. 7. Before parting with this case, it would be useful to remind the revenue authorities in the State that the taxman is today an abhorred person and, perhaps, for a valid reason. He is often seen as a person who arrives, armed with the authority of law, to take money away from a person who has it. The animosity against taxes is a shared one and the oft-quoted expression by Benjamin Franklin that "in this world nothing can....