TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2016 (7) TMI 585
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....63 & 64 of 1986. Accordingly, a statement of case was drawn on 09.08.1995 referring the following question of law by way of Reference Applications No. 11 & 12 of 1990: "(1) Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, Gujarat Sales Tax Tribunal was right in partly allowing the second appeal for the period S.Y. 2035 and amending the order passed by the learned Sales Tax Officer and the learned Assistant Commissioner of treating purchases from M/s. Sureshkumar Tulsidas of Khambalia made by the present opponent as purchases made from unregistered dealer and accordingly imposing purchase tax u/s 15 and penalties under sections 45(5) and 45(2)(c ) of the Gujarat Sales Tax Act, 1969 and whether the Tribunal has erred in appreciat....
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....es Tax Officer for S.Y. 2035 however disbelieved the same and enhanced the sales and purchases of the respondent three times the figures of the alleged suppression besides considering the purchases from Sureshkumar Tulsidas as purchases from unregistered dealer. Being aggrieved by the said assessment order the respondent preferred appeal before the Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax who by order dated 30.09.1984 partly allowed the same. The appellate authority however dismissed the appeal qua purchases from Sureshkumar Tulsidas and therefore the respondent preferred Second Appeal before the Tribunal. The Tribunal allowed the second appeals and held that the said purchases should be treated as purchases from registered dealers. Being aggrie....
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....e came for consideration by the Apex Court. The Apex Court in the case of State of Kerala vs. K.T. Shaduli Grocery Dealer etc. reported in (1977) 2 SCC 777 held as under: "2. Now, the law is well settled that tax authorities entrusted with the power to make assessment of tax discharge quasi- judicial functions and they are bound to observe principles of natural justice in reaching their conclusions. It is true, as pointed out by this Court in Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, West Bengal(1) that a taxing officer "is not lettered by technical rules of evidence and pleadings, and that he is entitled to act on material which may not be accepted as evidence in a court of law", but that does not absolve him from the ....
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....judicial authorities and this duty has been extended also to the authorities holding administrative enquiries involving civil consequences or affecting rights of parties because, as pointed out by this Court in A.K. Kraipak and Ors. v. Union of India,(1) "the aim of the rules of natural justice is to secure justice or to put it negatively to prevent miscarriage of justice" and justice, in a society which has accepted socialism _as its article of faith in the Constitution, is dispensed not only by judicial or quasi judicial authorities but also by authorities discharging administra- tive functions. This rule which requires an opportunity to be heard to be given to a person likely to be affected by a decision is also, like the genus of which ....
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....witnesses as a matter of right. In support of his submission he relied upon a decision of this Court in Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd v. Commissioner of Income Tax, West Bengal(1), where agreeing with a similar argument put forward by the Solicitor-General in that case this Court observed thus: "As regards the second contention, we are in entire agreement with the learned Solicitor-General when he says that the Income- tax Officer is not lettered by technical rules of evidence and pleadings, and that he is entitled to action material which may not be accepted as evidence in a Court of law, but there the agreement ends, because it is equal- ly clear that in making the assessment under sub- section (3) of section 23 of the Act, the Inc....
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....statute. " 7. Similarly, this Court in the case of Commissioner of Central Excise Ahmedabad II vs. Gujarat Cypromet Ltd reported in 2013 SCC Online Guj 1377 observed in paras 5 & 6 as under: "5. Having heard the learned counsel Shri Darshan Parikh for the Revenue and having perused the documents on record, it emerges that in this set of cases, the majority opinion was that the duty could not have been confirmed and penalty could not have been imposed without offering cross-examination of the important witnesses. The ld.Member (Judicial) had held that from the beginning the stand of the respondents was that the cross-examination was necessary. It was this opinion, which the third Member agreed to. He, therefore, held that the conclusio....