Raghubar Mandal Harihar Mandal vs The State Of Bihar on 22 May, 1957
In this connection, we may refer to the decision of the Supreme Court in Raghubar Mandal Harihar Mandal v. State of Bihar [1957] 8 S.T.C. 770 wherein their Lordships stated that when the returns and the books of account are rejected, the assessing officer must make an estimate and to that extent he must make a guess; but the estimate must be related to some evidence or material and it must be something more than mere suspicion. He must make what he honestly believes to be a fair estimate of the proper figure of assessment and for this purpose he must take into consideration such materials as the assessing officer has before him, including the assessee's circumstances, knowledge of previous returns and all other matters which the assessing officer thinks will assist him in arriving at a fair and proper estimate. It is, however, urged that there is in the body of the order of the Board, an implied direction that the sale proceeds of the forest produce should be taken at 2½ times the price paid therefor. In our opinion, those observations were made by the Board merely to indicate what according to it might have enabled it to hold that the estimate was on reasonable and proper ground. We think that those observations do not in any way fetter the Judgment of the Sales Tax Officer who has to decide the case in the light of the observations made by the Supreme Court in the case we have just mentioned. In conclusion, all that we need say is that this question does not raise any point of law.