TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1963 (5) TMI 1
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....after stated in brief. The mill of the petitioner firm is situated at premises No. 121, Raja Dinendra Street, in the town of Calcutta. The Divisional Preventive Intelligence Staff of the Central Excise Department, received information that the firm was not maintaining correct accounts of production of oil in the mill and was guilty of surreptitious removal of dutiable oil, without payment of duty. Relying on the information received, they took out a Search warrant from a Police Magistrate at Sealdah and searched the premises of the mill, on September, 6, 1961. In course of search they recovered the following documents : (1) two Press Books, (2) One Bill Book, (3) one Wage Register and (4) One Transport Register. A Seizure list (described as....
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....s the excess production was not found, leading to the inference that the said excess production must have been removed from the mill without payment of duty. 4.On such detection being made, the Petitioner was served with a notice to show cause in the following language : "Whereas it appears that M/s Annapurna Oil Mill, License No. 158/VO/56, of 121 Raja Dinendra Street, Calcutta-4, have contravened Rules 9(1), 52A, 53, 54 and 226 of the Central Excise Rules, 1944, inasmuch as the private records recovered from their above mentioned mill premises on 6-9-1961, under the cover of due search warrant, revealed that during the period from 20-4-1961 to 5-9-1961 (vide their Press Book containing 314 pages) they had manufactured a total quanti....
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....ative case, namely, that two dismissed clerks, out of mischievous motive, prepared the second Press Book and secretly planted the same in the mill premises. They were the persons, it was contended, who must have informed the Preventive Staff about the existence of a second Press Book and the search must have taken place on the inspiring information so received. It was further contended that second Press Book ex facie showed that it had been written by two different hands thereby indicating that the same must have been prepared by the two dismissed employees. It was lastly contended that if the partners of the mill intended to maintain a second Press Book, showing the real state of affair, they would not have kept the same within the mill pr....
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.... made, for cross-examination was not allowed and those persons were not tendered for cross-examination. 10.I take up the arguments advanced by Mr. Ghosh in the order they were made. The first ground urged by Mr. Ghosh is merely a ground that the authorities had not proceeded on sufficient evidence. If the findings had been based on no evidence whatsoever I would have certainly found fault with the findings. In the instant case, however, there was the evidence of the two Press Books, showing that the Petitioner firm had been maintaining a secret account of production. If from that evidence the respondent Assistant Collector came to the conclusion that the Press Book maintained in the gaddi was an untrustworthy book and the real state of p....