Law: Sales Tax Act, 1990

Section: 11,36,47

Sales Tax Act (VII of 1990)---Ss. 11, 36 & 47---Reference to High Court---Default in payment of Sales Tax---Assessee was issued show-cause notice wherein it was pointed out that it had defaulted in payment of taxes---Said show-cause notice, however, lacked bifurcation of amount for the various years---Assessee challenged the show-cause notice on the grounds that; it was time-barred; that department had further committed default by passing an order beyond prescribed limit under law; and that the Tribunal had failed to appreciate that the amount short paid belonged to other assessee, who had another unit in the premises and was willing to pay the same---Claims of assessee were ignored and amount was considered as defaulted and embargo in terms of stoppage of clearance of goods from business premises was placed---Claim of assessee continued to be the same namely that apparent direction in the show-cause notice for earlier two years was time-barred besides notice was late by four years---Since the amount was not bifurcated even at the subsequent stage, Additional Collector's action to correct the illegality was not proper---Original show-cause notice having remained unlawful, no superstructure could be built on a notice which was illegal and void on the face of it---Department having made the order beyond a period of 45 days prescribed by law, the entire proceedings had become time-barred, which had to be set aside---Illegalities were so apparent that one could not agree with the counsel for department with respect to the status of show-cause notice---Decision being time-barred was set aside and reference application was disposed of accordingly. JUDGMENT KHAWAJA FAROOQ SAEED, J.---This judgment will dispose of S.T.R No.68 of 2006 and S.T.R No.13 of 2007. 2. The assessee/petitioner was issued show-cause notice on 19-6-2000, which among other things pointed out that the petitioner had defaulted payment of taxes payable under Sales Tax Act which up till February, 2000 is short by Rs.34,74,610. This letter however lacked bifurcation of the amount for the various years. The petitioner challenged the show-cause notice inter alia on the basis of following arguments:--…

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