ORDER
Girish Chandra Gupta, J.
1. The writ petitioner has challenged an assessment order dated March 30, 1992 by which the Commercial Tax Officer refused to give benefit of the C forms to the assessee on the following grounds :
(a) Date of registration is not mentioned in the form.
(b) Levelling charges of bottom plate have been included in the
form.
(c) Form amount and statement amount differ.
(d) Purchase order was dated September 1, 1987 whereas invoices are dated April 29, 1987.
2. The learned advocate appearing for the writ petitioner submitted that except for the objection (d) noted above all other objections raised by the Commercial Tax Officer for the purpose of refusing relief to the assessee are illegal.
3. In respect of omission to state the date of registration in the C form he has relied on a division bench judgment of this Court. In the case of Anil Kumar Dutta v. Additional Member, Board of Revenue, West Bengal reported in [1967] 20 STC 528 at page 540, a Division Bench opined as follows :
“In the instant case, the defect in the declaration forms supplied by Messrs. Horie Stores, covered by question No. 1, was that the date of the registration certificate of the purchasing dealer was not given. The number of the registration certificate was there ; the omission to fill in the date of the registration certificate did not make the purchasing dealer unidentifiable. The omission was, therefore, not vital or substantial. As such the declaration should not have been rejected and the amount of sale covered thereby should not have been added back to the taxable turnover.”
4. On the basis of the aforesaid law laid down by this Court, the learned advocate for the petitioner submitted that this ground advanced by the Commercial Tax Officer should be rejected.
5. With regard to the objection (b) set out herein above, the learned advocate has drawn my attention to the concerned bill which is at page 51 of the petition. It appears that the price of the goods inclusive of sales tax was Rs. 79,705 levelling charges amounting to Rs. 1,600 were also added and the total was made for a sum of Rs. 81, 305. The declaration form in this case was for Rs. 81,305 and not for a sum of Rs. 79,705. The learned advocate appearing for the petitioner, in my view, rightly submitted that the declaration form given for a higher amount could not have been rejected on the ground that the bill has included the leveling charges and if the Commercial Tax Officer had any objection he could have given credit to the extent of Rs. 79,705. But he could not have refused to give credit for the form altogether. This submission, in my view, made by the learned advocate is acceptable and correct.
6. The objection (c) noted above goes to show that the relief was refused to the petitioner on the ground that the form amount and the Statement amount differed. He should have given him the benefit of the form amount. Why should he have refused to give him the benefit at all. Therefore, this finding of the Commercial Tax Officer is equally bad. So far as the last objection of the Commercial Tax Officer is concerned, the learned advocate for the petitioner has very fairly submitted that he does not contest this objection that the invoice date could not have been anterior to the date of the purchase order. He, however, submitted that excepting for four bills, in case of the other bills the invoice date is subsequent to the date of the purchase order which was not factually disputed by the learned advocate appearing for the department.
7. Mrs. Seba Roy, learned advocate appearing for the department submitted that wrong entries in the form cannot be corrected and that have to be returned to the selling dealer for rectification. For this proposition she relied on [1970] 26 STC 480 (Orissa) [State of Orissa v. Orissa Polish Works].
8. This Court is of the view that this judgment has no application because it is not a case where the forms are wrong. The question is whether the petitioner could be denied relief for the amount for which he has produced forms and that question has not been answered by this judgment.
9. I am of the view that the petitioner is in fact entitled to relief to the extent that he has produced the forms. The learned advocate appearing for the department also relied on a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court reported in [1978] 41 STC 484 [Commissioner of Sales Tax, M.P. v. Bombay Textile Stores] for the proposition that the C forms should not only contain the registration number but should also contain the date of registration and in the absence of the date of registration, the C forms cannot be entertained.
10. This view is directly opposed to the view taken by the Division Bench of this Court, which is binding on me. Therefore, I refuse to take notice of this judgment relied on by Mrs. S. Roy.
11. The petition, accordingly, succeeds.
12. There will be an order in terms of prayers (a) and (b).
13. It is however made clear that the forms will be accepted to the extent indicated above.
14. There will be no order as to costs.
15. Urgent xerox certified copy be given to the parties if applied for.