by a dealer is found to be defective or not accompanied by supporting documents or is found to be incorrect, the revenue authority can issue a notice to the dealer intimating him of the rejection of his returns, and providing him with an opportunity to file a fresh return, or for producing documents and accounts to prove the correctness of the return filed, within a period of 15 days from the date of notice. Thereafter, if no return is filed within the time granted, or the documents sought for are not produced, the revenue authority is expected to issue a fresh notice to the dealer intimating him of his decision to proceed with a best judgment assessment under S. 25 of the KVAT Act. This latter notice is essentially in the nature of a show cause notice, asking the dealer to show cause as to why the assessment should not be completed on best judgment basis. For the opportunity provided to the dealer to be reasonable and meaningful, the time granted to the dealer must be sufficient to enable him to appear before the authority concerned and show cause against the said proposal. No doubt, the time to be granted must necessarily be left to the discretion of the authority concerned. The discretion, however, is one that has to be exercised after taking into account the difficulties, if any, put forward by the dealer concerned and should not, in any event, be less than 7 days from the date of service of the notice on the dealer. It is disturbing to note that, notwithstanding the decision of this Court in Suzion Infrastructure Service Ltd. v. Commerial Tax Officer (W.C), Ernakulam [2010 (3) KHC 299] where the practice of revenue authorities, in issuing a composite notice calling for fresh returns/documents/accounts as well as for the hearing in connection with the best judgment assessment that is proposed, was deprecated, the revenue authorities continue to follow such an unfair and arbitrary procedure while completing assessments on best judgment basis.”
