ORDER
M.P. Chandrakantaraj Urs, J.
1. Of the several questions formulated in this sales tax revision petition, Mr. Katageri, learned counsel for the petitioner, has addressed arguments before us pressing question No. 2. It is as follows :
“Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in relying upon the electricity consumption for estimating the turnover of groundnut oil and groundnut oil-cake ?”
2. Briefly stated facts are these :
The assessing authority, for the assessment year April 1, 1972 to March 31, 1973, did not accept the books of accounts and the invoices produced by the petitioner-assessee, inter alia, on the ground that there was no proper account of purchases said to have been made from agriculturists unsupported by any voucher and only weighment bills were produced without correspondent invoices. In that circumstance he was compelled to reject the books of account and other documents produced in support of the return filed and to make a best judgment assessment. He even, on certain claims of the petitioner, investigated 3 agencies available to him. Such an investigation proved that list of persons from whom he had purchased or sold the oil or oil-cake or the groundnuts did not exist at all or if they did exist they denied having purchased or sold groundnut to him or purchased oil-cake for him. In that circumstance rejecting the books of accounts he made an estimate for the relevant year depending on the electrical energy consumed by the oil crusher installed at the assessee’s oil mill at Maddur. The assessing authority also viewed with suspicion most of the transactions on account of the fact that all the purchases had been made from Mysore city. On such an estimate made by him he concluded the assessment and subjected the petitioner to tax under section 6B of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957, on a turnover of Rs. 8,78,530 and concluded the assessment under sub-section (4) of section 12 of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act. He also levied penalty under sub-section (4) in a sum of Rs. 5,000. On appeal the order of the assessing authority came to be confirmed but penalty imposed under sub-section (4) of section 12 was set aside. Aggrieved by the first appellate court’s order the assessee moved the karnataka Appellate Tribunal which affirmed the first appellate authority’s order. Therefore, the present revision petition urging the question of law which we have extracted earlier in the course of this order.
3. The assessee is the owner of oil mill which apparently has a crusher operated by electrical energy is not in dispute. It has come in the course of the orders of the first appellate authority as well as second appellate authority that the assessee had claimed that the consumption of electrical energy could not be a sound basis for estimating the cost. His brother had also used the electrical energy. In what manner and how his brother used the electrical energy was never pleaded nor proved by the assessee. On the other hand his brother had denied the use of electrical energy supplied to the oil mill of the assessee. Normally when a machinery is run by electricity to achieve the end-product, the consumption of the electrical energy certainly has a correlation to the output of the end-product or the quantum of the end-product. If the consumption is more the end-product must also increase, if the consumption is less the end-product must also decrease in quantum. We do not see any reason to hold that basis adopted for determination of use of electrical energy suffers from any error or to be arbitrary.
4. However, Mr. Katageri relied upon a decision of Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the case of Raja Pullaiah v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer [1969] 24 STC 90. In the said case the learned Judges, disposing of the writ petition in which the assessee had challenged the correctness of the estimate made on the basis of the consumption of the electrical energy, ruled that when tests were conducted in case of other mill owners crushing oil, and when such test was not conducted in the case of assessee resulted in arbitrary assessment or estimate of the turnover of the assessee in that case. We do not see how that helps the case of the assessee-petitioner befores us. Question of conducting a test of other mills did not arise in this case. In this case books of account and the documents produced in support of the return filed were rejected by the authorities below. In that circumstance they made best judgment assessment of the turnover linking the production of oil and oil-cake to energy consumption to determine the turnover. We therefore find that it was a sound basis in the absence of other materials or evidence led by the assessee which would prove such basis was not a sound basis.
5. We do not find any merit in this petition and accordingly we dismiss it.
6. Petition dismissed.