Case Law Details
Bhima Enterprises Vs State Tax Officer (Kerala High Court)
‘ERROR APPARENT ON THE FACE OF THE RECORD’ IN A TAXING STATUTE – SHOULD BE AN ERROR SELF-EVIDENT – HIGH COURT OF KERALA
The Hon’ble High Court of Kerala held in M/s. Bhima Enterprises Vs. State Tax Officer (Investigation Branch) & Anr (WP(C) No. 28526 of 2021), Dated 3rd March, 2022 that error apparent on the face of the record’ implies an error which can be established not by a long drawn process of reasoning on points having two opinions. It should be an error self-evident which can be established without having any lengthy and complicated arguments.
Facts of the case
The petitioner was an assessee under the erstwhile Kerala Value Added Tax Act,2003 (KVAT Act for brevity) and for the assessment year 2016-17, an order of penalty U/s. 67(1) of the said Act was passed against the petitioner. Instead of challenging the order in appeal, petitioner preferred a petition for rectification U/s. 66 of the said Act, pointing out there are certain apparent errors on the ace of the order which have to be rectified. The contentions raised in the rectification petition were that (a) though the petitioner had sought for a forensic examination of the four slips which according to the petitioner were manipulated documents having no evidentiary value and the affidavit alleging manipulation remained unrebutted were not considered by the assessing officer: (b) the penalty will not be attracted if the transaction in question was accounted and had passed through the books of accounts, as held in the decision in U.K. Monu Timbers (M/s.) v. State of Kerala (2012 (3) KHC 111) and hence there was not a single case of non-accounting of any transaction available as per records: (c) no penalty can be imposed if the job work charges collected from the client had passed through the books of account and conceded before the assessing authority and (d) binding decisions of the jurisdictional High Court and of the Supreme Court were not considered. However, the respondent officer had rejected the petition for rectification after finding that there is no reason to invoke section 66 of the Act. Aggrieved thereby, the petitioner has approached the Hon’ble High Court through the Writ petition.
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