Jurisprudentiol - Wednesday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.CST Act, 1956

Error apparent on face of record- Section 8 of CST Act, 1956 - If an interstate sales transaction is not covered by Form C, rate of tax would be equivalent to rate of VAT applicable for commodity in particular state - Inter state sale transactions without Form C - Application of wrong rate of tax by grouping all items - Application for rectification made by petitioner but not considered despite reminders - Department directed to consider Application for rectification and pass orders.: HC

THE petitioner is a manufacturer of petroleum products like Bitumen, Hexane Slack wax etc., and filed returns for CST for assessment year 2007-08. The respondent passed assessment order dated 04.07.2012. On a perusal of the order, the petitioner found certain errors apparent on the face of the assessment order. In the assessment order, the respondent grouped interstate sale transactions of all the petroleum products without Form C and assessed the total turnover at 30%, even though the petitioner gave details of sales of individual items with name of each of the commodities sold. Whereas the respondent erroneously grouped the entire list of commodities under the nomenclature petroleum products and assessed the entire turnover to tax at 30% which is applicable for sale of petrol and not for other petroleum products like bitumen, Hexane slack wax etc.,. The petitioner then filed rectification application under Section 84 of the TNVAT Act, 2006 and sought for rectification of the error. However, despite repeated reminders the respondent did not pass any order on the rectification application and the petitioner filed Writ Petition praying for quashing the assessment order as arbitrary and illegal and to direct the respondent to consider the representation for rectification.

Income Tax

Whether, for purpose of block assessment, it is necessary that name of assessee must figure in warrant of authorisation u/s 132 - YES: HC

THE assessee is a lady. Her husband's premises were searched pursuant to a search warrant. During the course of search of the husband's residential premises certain documents were seized. A panchanama was drawn on 24th February, 2006, which revealed the locker keys pertaining to three lockers which were in joint names of S.K. Mohile and Ashish S. Mohile and the assessee. The lockers were at Bank of Baroda. On 23rd February, 1996 a warrant of authorization was issued in the name of the Branch manager, Bank of Baroda to search the lockers. The argument advanced was that, in the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, AO had no jurisdiction to pass an assessment order in the present case u/s 143(3) read with Section 158BC as no search warrant was served on the assessee.

The issues before the Bench are - Whether Search as per the provisions of Sec 132 is always person-specific and not premise-specific; Whether, for the purpose of block assessment, it is necessary that the name of the assessee must figure in the warrant of authorisation u/s 132 and Whether mere presence of the assessee's name in the panchnama enables the Revenue to initiate block assessment. And the verdict goes against the assessee.

Customs

Revenue alleging that the respondent had imported Motherboards, Modems, Fast Ethernet Adapters, etc. in CKD condition - from the evidence on record it cannot be said that the parts imported by Respondent are not further worked upon - there is also no suppression since respondent has not misdeclared goods - Revenue appeal dismissed: CESTAT

THE Respondents made import of electronics parts/components namely, Resistors, Inductors, Chips, Codecs, Driver CDs, Labels, Heat Sinks, Regulators, Capacitors etc. of Motherboards, Modems, Fast Ethernet Adapters, Ethernet Cards, Switches, Hubs etc.

Show Cause Notices were issued to the Respondents on the ground that the items imported are appropriately classifiable as Motherboards, Modems, Fast Ethernet Adapters, etc. in unassembled forms by applying Rule 2(a) of the General Rules for Interpretation.

The CCE, Goa dropped the proceedings and the Revenue is before the CESTAT.

See our Columns Tomorrow for the judgements