2015 (12) TMI 51

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

....porters and transport goods of various dealers. The allegation of the State is that the transporter has helped or actively connived with the dealer in facilitating the evasion of taxes. The question raised is whether a transporter can be held liable to pay tax and penalty in terms of Section 13A of the Tripura Sales Tax Act, 1976 and Section 77 of the Tripura Value Added Tax, 2004. The constitutional validity of these two provisions is also challenged in these writ petitions. 3. The issues are no longer res integra. A Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court (Agartala Bench) decided WP(C) 42 of 2005 and various other matters[M/s T. R Freight Movers Vs. State of Tripura & Ors.] in which the following questions were decided : "1. ....

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

....acilitates and/or abates (sic) evasion of tax and because of whose default, evasion of tax takes place. 2. Tax can be imposed on transporters by treating a transporter as a dealer by creating legal fiction so as to treat, in the prescribed circumstances, a transporter, as a dealer, and/or by raising a legal presumption that the taxable goods, handled by a transporter, have been delivered to a dealer without any valid permit or by raising a legal presumption that the transporter has concealed the actual particulars of the goods transported by him and the goods have been sold, within the State, by the dealer without making payment of tax for such sale. 3. The provisions of Section 13A of the TST Act, 1976, and Section 77 of ....