Central Sales Tax – C Forms – Failure to produce at the time of assessment – Forms obtained subsequently – Can be produced before the Authority, Rule 12 (7) of The Central Sales Tax ( Registration and Turnover) Rules, 1957

 In the assessment for the period 2004-05, the claim of the dealer for concessional rate of tax against form C was disallowed for want of required C forms, but the Tribunal permitted production of C forms received subsequently and the matter was remanded back to the assessing authority for verification of the forms. Subsequently, the dealer received four more C forms and produced before the assessing authority with a request to consider those forms also. This prayer was rejected by the assessing authority on the ground that there was no evidence of those forms having been produced before the Tribunal at the time of hearing of the appeal. The dealer filed writ petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, against the refusal by the assessing authority to consider the claim of concessional rate of tax for production of additional C Forms before him on the ground that forms can be produced at any stage.

Held

The explanation of the dealer was that the forms were issued by the purchasing dealers in question after the decision of the appellate authority and on that ground, the same could not be produced earlier. During the hearing before the Tribunal, the forms were sought to be produced, but this was not allowed. In view of explanation given by the petitioner that the forms were received late, it could be held that there was sufficient cause for the petitioner for not producing the same before the assessing and appellate authority. This was no bar to the same being produced before the Tribunal. Accordingly, the writ petition filed by the dealer was allowed by the High Court to permit the petitioner to produce the Forms in accordance with law.