January 2013
Vasanthi Automobiles v. Commercial Tax Officer II, Puducherry, [2011] 43 VST 142 (Mad)
By C. B. Thakar, Advocate
G. G. Goyal, Janak Vaghani, Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 2 mins
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Sales Tax- Inter-State Stock Transfer-Time – Limit Prescribed for Furnishing “F” Form – Forms obtained after time-limit – Can be accepted- Section 16 of The Pondicherry General Sales Tax Act, 1967 and The Central Sales Tax ( Registration and Turnover) Rules,1957.
Facts
The Pondicherry General Sales Tax Rules provides that if the assesse claimed any concessional rate of tax based on any declaration in form C or D, as the case may be and fails to furnish the declaration with returns then the dealer shall be assessed at the higher rate of tax on the turnover declared in the returns filed by him. However, if the dealer filed required declaration within a period of 90 days from the date of receipt of the assessment order, the assessment order stands suitably modified under the Act to the extent of the declaration filed. Since in the case of a dealer, necessary declaration in F form was not filed at the time of filing of the return, the assessment was made at higher rate of tax. The dealer filed application u/s. 16 of the Act with the production of necessary F form which was rejected on the ground that the application was not made within the prescribed period of 90 days. The dealer filed writ petition before the High Court against the order.
Held
It may be noted that the furnishing of the statutory forms is not within the control of the petitioner and is dependent on the other State dealer’s co-operation. If on a sufficient cause the petitioner satisfies the requirements of law, the claim cannot be rejected unjustifiably merely on the score of time limit prescribed under the Act. The High Court accordingly allowed the writ petition filed by the dealer with a direction to the department to accept Form F filed by the dealer and grant necessary relief.
