2016 (1) TMI 954

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....licant are all questions of law. Each of them should have been referred for the determination and answer by this Court. 2. Mr. Thakar, learned counsel appearing in support of the application, firstly submitted that Rule 54 of the Bombay Sales Tax Rules, 1959, do not require a dealer like the applicant to maintain records of past transactions for more than five years. The five year period, according to him, should be reckoned from the last day of the financial year concerned. In the instant case, he would invite our attention to the admitted facts to submit that an assessment order in Form-A under section 33(2) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, was made on 30th November, 1995. That itself would indicate that the period covered was 1st Ap....

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....er was adjourned. On 6th December, 2000, in the absence of the dealer and his representative, the file was closed and the subject order dated 7th December, 2000, came to be passed. 3. In challenging that order, Mr. Thakar would submit that a specific contention about applicability of Rule 54 was raised. The Tribunal has failed to answer it. That failure to answer resulted in the Reference Application being filed, but the Tribunal rejected it erroneously. All the questions that were proposed are questions of law, but in a cryptic order, the Tribunal has rejected them. It is in these circumstances that Mr. Thakar would submit that we should entertain this application and direct the Tribunal to forward the questions accordingly. 4. Relia....

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....Bombay Sales Tax Rules, 1946, the lower authorities were justified in demanding the production of declarations as required under Rule 26(2) of the said Rules after a lapse of three years from 31st March, 1950, and that as such, the claim of the dealer under section 6(3)-Rule I(ii) for the period 1st April, 1948 to 31st March,1950, must be accepted. The dealer before the Court was registered under the then Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1946. It was not disputed that for the period, namely 1st April, 1948 to 31st March, 1952, i.e., much after it duly and legally filed the returns, it received a notice on 12th December, 1953, calling upon it to attend the Sales Tax Office in respect of the assessment. The order of assessment, which was one composite o....

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.... duplicates and cash memos, certificates and declarations given to him by those dealers who purchased goods from him until the expiry of the period of limitation for the initiation of suo moto revision proceedings or reassessment proceedings, or, when no period of limitation is prescribed, for the initiation of such proceedings for all times, and if he does not preserve such documents, no adverse inference can be drawn against him by the reassessing or revising authority nor can such authority in suo moto revision or reassessment proceedings cancel, withdraw or disallow any deduction or exemption allowed to him in his assessment proceedings on the strength of such documents produced in the course of his assessment proceedings or in appeal o....

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.... dealer to discharge it to its prejudice. The argument has been considered and answered essentially in the backdrop of the assessment by rendering a factual that the exercise of the Revisional proceedings was within the period of limitation. In exercising that power, no prejudice is caused. The judgment in the case of Ramdas Laxmidas (supra) was expressly cited and referred. That it was held to be inapplicable in the backdrop of the above, therefore, raises no question of law. 11. We are not impressed by the argument that the other questions as produced at page Nos. 6 and 7 of the paper-book are also questions of law. We do not think that in an assessment and pertaining to years as old as 1992-1993, that we should exercise any powers and....