LexRAM KANAI JAMINI RANJAN PAL PVT. LTD. versus MEMBER BOARD OF REVENUE, WEST BENGAL
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A B c D E F G H I I 0 RAM KANAI JAMIN! RANJAN PAL PVT. LTD. v. MEMBER BOARD OF REVENUE, WEST BENGAL April 23. 1976 [A. C. GUPTA AND JASWANT SINGH, JJ.J Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941-S. 20(3)-Scope o/-Adt!itio!!al Commissioner reassessed turnover taking into consideration 111ateriaf not a1•ailable to assessing authority-if co1npetent. Section 20(3) of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 provide' that the Commissioner, upon application or of his own motion, may revise ahy assessment made or order passed under the Act or the Rules thereunder by a person appqinted under s. 3 to assist him and the Board of Revenue may, in like manner, revise any order passed by the Commissioner. At the time of asses_smcnt of the. appellant's sales tax return, the OJ.mn1tT~ cial Tax Officer enhanced the gross turnover and charged the enhanced amount to tax and in addition impo~d a penalty. On appeal under s. 20(1) or the Act, the Assistant Commissioner reduced the enhancement of gross turnover as well as the penalty. The appellant filed a revision application before the Comn1issioner of Comn1ercial Taxes. Before the filing of revision application, under orders of the Additional Commissioner, an enquiry was conducted by a Commercial Tax Officer who detected numerous discrepancies of a serious nature in the accounts. On the basis of this report, the Additional Commissioner enhanced the assessment by a huge sum and charged the entire enhanced amount to tax. On further revision to the Board of Revenue, the appellant contended that while exercising his power of revision under s. 20(3) of the Act, the Commissioner had to confine himself to an examination of the mate- rial before the assessing officer and could not take additional facts into consi- deration which plea was rejected by the Board. The High Court held that ( i) under s. 20 ( 3) the Additional Commissioner was competent to reassess the gross turnover by taking into consideration addi- tional material which had not been made available to the assessing officer and (ii) the Additional Commissioner was vested with authority under s. 20(3) read with r. 80A to rely on the report under s. 14(1) initiated long before the filing of the revision petition. Dismissing the appeal, HELD : The Commissioner or Additional Commissioner can. in exercise of his revisional power, re-asSess the turnover a'hd while doing &o, rope in the escaped items of turnover ah<l thereby enhance the gros·s turnove-r. [l 16 Cr] (1) The word "Revise", the dictionary meaning of which is "to re-examine, to review, to correct or to amend the fault", is not hedged or qualified by any condition or limitation. The controlling expressions like "for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the legality or propriety of the order passed" or "regularity of the proceedings'' which. are susceptible of being construed a~ restricting the revisional power to rectification of an illegality or impropriety of the order or or irregularity in the pr~dilJlgs· are also not to be found. therein. There is alsq nothing in the Bengal Sales Tax Rules. 1941 to cir- cumscribe or limit the p0¥/er. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to infer that the amplitude of the power conferred on the Commissioner or the Additional Con1missioner is more extensive than the power exerciseable by the High Court under s. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It can be ea:\i1y equated with tli..e power exercise.able by the appellate authority in an appea'. under sub. s. 2 ol s. 20 of the Act. [IJ5 F-HJ 'V ' ' - - • • - - .. ) • ,Y ' RAM KANAI v. BOARD OF REVENUE (Jaswant Singh, J.) 111 Indira Solianlal v. Custodian of Evacuee Property Delhi and Otliers A,.I.R. A 1956 S.C. 77 : East Asiatic Co. (India) Ltd. v. The State Qf Ml!dra, 7 S.T.C. 299, State of Kerala v. K. M. Cheria Abdulla & Co. [1965] 16 S.T.C. 875, Sa·astik Oil Mil~ Ltd. v. H. B. Munshi Deputy Cornniissioner of Sc•!es Tax, Bombay [i968] 2 S.C.R. 492, State of Madras v. The A1adura K11itti12g Co. Ltd. (1959) JO S.T.C. 155, referred to. Deputy Co1nmissioner of Agricultural I1u:pnze·tax and Sales Tax, Qui/011 and Anr. v. Dhanalakshmi Vilas Cashew Co. (1969) 24 S.T.C. 491, The State B of Kera/Av. M. Appukutty (1963) 14 S.T.C. 242 and Commi.»ioncr of lncomc- tax, Bombay v. Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry (1962) 44 I.T.R. 891, distinguished. (2) On a combined reading of s. 20(3) and rule 80A of the Rules it is immaterial wh
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