- (1.) This revision petition has been filed by the petitioner-Department, under section 84 of the Rajasthan Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (in short, "the Act") against the order dated November 22, 2010 passed by the Rajasthan Tax Board, Ajmer (in short, "the Board") in Appeal No. 1378 of 2009, which upheld the order dated April 30, 2009 passed by the learned Deputy Commissioner (Appeals)-II (in short, "the DC (A)"), who had deleted the levy of penalty of Rs. 1,09,009 imposed by the learned Assistant Commercial Taxes Officer (in short, "the ACTO"), under section 78(5) of the said Act. The brief facts of the case as emerging on record are that the respondent had sent certain goods through a transport vehicle bearing No. HR-46-9929 from Delhi to Jaipur, containing therein iron rods, etc. On checking by ACTO, builty No. 2729 dated September 11, 2000, Invoice No. 5315 dated September 11, 2000 and text note of Tata Steels dated September 11, 2000 were found with the driver of the transport vehicle. However, with the aforesaid documents/papers form No. ST-18A was not found, which was mandatory as per the Act. Accordingly, the ACTO held that the respondent had contravened the provisions of section 78(2) of the Act and imposed penalty against the respondent to the extent of Rs. 1,09,009 being 30 per cent of the value of the goods which was claimed to be at Rs. 3,63,363.
(2.) It was submitted by the respondent before the ACTO that although, all the relevant papers were available with the transport vehicle but form ST-18A though sent from Delhi Office with clear instruction to transport company to inform the driver of the transport vehicle to carry the same. By inadvertence the clerk did not hand it over to the driver of the said vehicle, however immediately on demand the said form ST-18A was produced before the ACTO, and submitted that it was on account of bona fide mistake, the form could not be made available on the spot. It was further submitted by the learned counsel for the respondent before the DC (A) that there was no mala fide intention of the respondent in not producing the form No. ST-18A as the clerk of the transport vehicle company forgot to hand it over the same to the driver of the vehicle who was carrying goods. The ACTO, being dissatisfied with the respondent, imposed the penalty on the respondent-company as stated above.
(3.) Aggrieved by the said penalty order, the respondent preferred an appeal before the learned DC (A) and reiterated the facts and submitted that the assessee was prevented from carrying the form No. ST-18A on account of inadvertence for the reasons stated earlier and that all the other documents were made available to the satisfaction of ACTO and immediately on demand, form No. ST-18A was called for from Delhi office and submitted before the ACTO and argued that keeping in view, all the facts and circumstances of the case and also keeping in view, the bona fide mistake committed by the clerk for not handing over the form No. ST-18A to the driver of the vehicle the penalty should not be imposed. The respondent before DC (A) relied upon the judgment of the apex court rendered in the case of State of Rajasthan v. D.P. Metals, 2001 124 STC 611 . The DC (A), accepted the bona fides of the respondent and not only relied upon the said judgment but also referred to certain other judgments and ultimately, vide order dated April 30, 2009 deleted the penalty imposed upon the respondent.;