Deliberate false representations, as defined in section 10 (b) of the Mysore Sales Tax Act, 1957, warrant the imposition of penalties under section 10-A.

( 1 ) THESE are revision petitions under section 23 of the Mysore Sales Tax Act, 1957. They raise an identical question of law for consideration. Therefore, it would be convenient to deal with them together.

( 2 ) IN application under section 23 of the Mysore Sales Tax Act of 1957, the only grounds that the high Court can consider are (1) whether the Appellate Tribunal has failed to decide a question of law of (2) whether it has decided a question of law erroneously. So far as questions of fact are concerned, the findings reached by the Tribunal are final and conclusive. It is not open to this court to go into their correctness. We shall now examine the contentions advanced in these cases bearing in mind the limitations imposed on this Court by the aforementioned section 23.

( 3 ) THE petitioner in S. T. R. P. No. 15 of 1965 is a "dealer" in Mangalore. He has obtained a registration certificate under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, to be hereinafter referred to as the "act" for his inter-State purchases of tin provisions, patent goods, medicine, tobacco, medicated wines and denatured spirits, cigars and cigarettes. In respect of those goods the Sales Tax authorities had issued the petitioner during the year 1961-62, the necessary "c" Forms. It appears that the petitioner had used some of those "c" Forms for purchasing in the course of inter-State trade goods not covered by his certificate of registration. Those goods are petromaxes, tapes, toilets, battery cells, glassware, essences etc. The Commercial Tax Officer, mangalore, on examination of the accounts of the petitioner came to the conclusion at the petitioner had falsely represented to his sellers while purchasing those goods that they were covered by his certificate of registration. Therefore, he proceeded against him under section 10-A of the Act and called upon him to show cause why penalty should not be imposed on him as provided by that section. In response to that show cause notice, the petitioner represented as follows :

"they (partners of the petitioner-firm) did not represent when purchasing goods that the said goods were covered by their certificate of registration. The objectors were under a bona fide belief that if they furnished the 'c' Form they were required to pay only 1 per cent. as C. S. T. and thus would be in an advantageous position. They did not know nor did the authorities inform them that the goods in question should be entered in their certificate of registration. If they knew it they would have readily applied for inclusion of the said goods in their certificate of registration. Hence if at all, the irregularity if any is only technical and no offence under section 10 (b) could be held to have been committee. "

( 4 ) REJECTING that contention, the Commercial Tax Officer imposed on the petitioners a penalty of rs. 920. 58. The petitioner's appeal against that order to the Deputy Commissioner of commercial Taxes was unsuccessful.

( 5 ) BEFORE the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, it was contended on behalf of the petitioner that the representation made by him to has sellers outside the State of Mysore cannot be said to be "false" within the meaning of that expression found in section 10 (b) of that Act. Rejecting that contention, this is what the Tribunal said :

"the next contention of Sri Aithala is that there was no false representation as contemplation under section 10 (b ). The goods not covered by registration certificate have been purchased by issue of 'c' Form. It is not the case of the appellant-firm that it did so by ignorance. We find that the person in management is an educated person. He had not applied for purchases of toilet, petromax, etc. , to be included in the certificate when he applied for certificate of registration; when an educated party issued 'c' Form in respect of goods not covered by certificate of registration the ordinary presumption is that he did so by falsely representing that the goods were covered by the