JUDGMENT R.M. Sahai, J.
1.Agrieved against the reduction of turnover of 1974-75 for the goods which were sold in 1973-74 but returned in 1974-75 the Commissioner of Sales Tax has come to this Court and has raised the following question of law:
Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the learned additional revising authority was legally justified to hold that exemption on account of return of goods can be allowed in the assessment year in which the goods have been returned notwithstanding the fact that it was not a part of the gross turnover of that year, but of the previous year ?
2. Admittedly, the assessee carrying on business of manufacture and sale of survey and drawing instruments sold goods worth Rs. 10,000 to the Executive Engineer, Irrigation Survey Department, Bilaspur, in the assessment year 1973-74. The tax was levied on it and was paid by the assessee. It appears that the goods were not approved by the Government. Consequently the bill was not honoured and the goods were returned in 1974-75. In the assessment proceedings for this year the assessee claimed that the amount be deducted from the turnover of 1974-75. This was accepted by the revising authority and he held that Section 8A(1)(b) did not put any restriction on Judgment (sic) of such turnover in the immediately succeeding assessment year.
3. The turnover under the Central Sales Tax Act has been defined in Section 2, Sub-section (j), as "the aggregate of the sale prices received and receivable by him in respect of sales of any goods in the course of inter-State trade or commerce made during any prescribed period and determined in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the Rules made thereunder".
4. Section 8A permits certain deductions of aggregate of sale prices while determining the turnover of a dealer. The deduction in respect of return of goods is provided in Sub-section (1)(b) as under :
the sale price of all goods returned to the dealer by the purchasers of such goods,-
(i) ...
(ii) within a period of six months from the date of delivery of the goods, in the case of goods returned on or after the fourteenth day of May, 1966.
5. The deduction therefore of the sale price of the goods returned within six months from the turnover is to be related to the turnover in which the sale was made. It could not be extended to the succeeding year. At least the section does not permit so. Even otherwise the return of the goods and the deduction of the sale prices has to be read along with the turnover of sale and purchase of a particular year. It cannot take place in other year or in respect of turnover of other year, as the goods which were returned did not form part of the turnover of the dealer in that year.
6. In the result this revision succeeds and is allowed. The order passed by the Additional Judge (Revisions) is set aside. A copy of this order shall be sent to the Tribunal to take action under Section 11(8) of the Act. As nobody has appeared for the assessee there shall be no order as to costs.