JUGAL KISHORE RADHAKISSEN Vs. ADDITIONAL MEMBER, BOARD OF REVENUE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against a judgment and order passed by Banerjee, J. on July 6, 1965. The short facts of the case are as follows:

(2.) We take the first two items which relate to the declaration forms obtained from the same dealer, namely, Kasturchand Surajmal. The declaration forms concerned are two in number, viz. D/266037 and D/308002. These two declarations had been rejected by the Additional Commissioner on two grounds. It was alleged that the purchasing dealer had obtained its registration certificate by issuing a false name and was, in fact, criminally prosecuted. We do not uphold this ground of rejection of the declaration forms because it appears from the order of the Additional Commissioner himself that the purchasing dealer in question had been acquitted after prosecution. But the declaration forms suffer from another serious infirmity. The forms do not mention the purpose of purchase. The statutory form of declaration under Rule 27(a) shows that there should be an indication in the form as to whether the purchases were for resale, use in manufacture of goods for sale, use in the execution of contracts or packing of goods for re -sale. The certificate as to the purpose of the purchase in question is the most essential item in the form of declaration. We have inspected the forms of declaration submitted by the purchasing dealer, namely, Kasturchand Surajmal. In the declaration forms the dealer does not strike out the items which are not applicable in his case. To understand this point it may be convenient to set out the form of certificate appearing in the statutory form No. XXIV ;

(3.) At the foot of the form of declaration is a note that from the four items indicating the various purposes for which the purchases can be made, those which do not apply in any particular case should be struck out. This the purchasing dealer had not done in the particular declaration forms with which we are concerned. We are of the opinion that the Commercial Tax Officer was perfectly justified in rejecting these two declaration forms. Unless he knew the purpose for which the purchase had been made it was not possible for him to ascertain whether the declaration forms were valid and whether the dealer who sold would be entitled to exemption for those sales. Mr. Sinha sought to rely in this connection on the judgment of a Division Bench of this High Court in Durga Sree Stores v/s. Board of Revenue, West Bengal (1962) : 67 C.W.N. 179 : (1964) 15 S.T.C. 186 where it was held that the mere non -striking of the alternatives in the several Forms (No. 11 A, 11B and XXIV) would not be a fatal defect. In our opinion, that case does not apply to the facts of the present case at all. In that case, their Lordships in giving their reasons for the particular conclusion to which they came observed: