Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

3.Armed with the reply received under the RTI Act, the petitioner submitted a representation to the respondent enclose the copy of the reply received from the Customs Department and sought for revision of assessment under Section 84 of the TNVAT Act. This Petition has been rejected on the ground that the import data received from CPIO is with reference to PAN No.AWJPM5413E and the reply received from the Customs Department is with regard to the Import and Export Code No.2509000268 and it is with reference to a different PAN number. Admittedly, the assessment was sought to be revised based on the information collected from the Departmental website. Therefore, the petitioner should have been furnished with full details as to the period during which the import was effected, the import code number, the commodity code number, etc. However, no such details was furnished when the show cause notice dated 23.03.2015 was issued. Though the petitioner stated that they have not effected any import, the respondent did not believe with the stand. Therefore, the petitioner approached the Customs Department and obtained information under RTI Act and approached the respondent for revision of assessment under Section 84 of the TNVAT Act. The petitioner while seeking for information from the Customs Department has referred to the Import Export Code. The import export code is assigned to an importer and there can be no two same code numbers. The PAN number of an importer is an additional detail which will be furnished. Therefore, at the first instance, verification should be done if the Import Export Code number and if there is a difference in the same, then it would mean the import has been effected by certain other their parties and not the petitioner. However, the respondent appears to have not done such an exercise but has directed the petitioner to prove the negative which is not possible to do. Therefore, the respondent ought to have embarked upon an independent exercise by verifying with the Customs Department and then confronting the petitioner with the information that he may obtain. Without doing so, rejection of the petition under Section 84 of the TNVAT Act by stating that the PAN number is different is incorrect. Therefore, the order passed dated 16.06.2017 calls for interference and however, at this stage, this Court is not inclined to set aside the assessment order dated 29.04.2016 as it has merged with the order dated 16.06.2017.