Composition of offences under section 31 of the Mysore Sales Tax Act, 1957 is complete when the prescribed authority and dealer agree on a certain sum of money as a payment by way of composition, which immediately operates as an acquittal of the dealer.

( 1 ) THE petitioner, T. Nanjappa and Sons, is a firm of partners carrying on business of general merchants at Krishnarajpet, Mandya District. They are assessed to sales tax as dealers. In the course of an inspection of their business premises, the Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Mysore Division, discovered several irregularities which in his opinion amounted to offences punishable under section 29 of the Mysore Sales Tax Act, 1957. Thereupon, he issued notice to them dated 4th April, 1966, expressing his opinion as stated above and giving them all opportunity to compound the offences departmentally by paying Rs. 500 in respect of each of the offences and calling upon them to appear before him for the said purpose on 19th April, 1966. On that date, two partners, namely, t. Nanjappa and H. N. Janardhana, were present and after hearing them and discussing the matter with them, he made the following record in his order of that date :-

"sri T. Nanjappa was present in person along with his son Sri H. N. Janardhana, another partner of the firm in response to a notice issued on 4th April, 1966, and filed the said reply. He accepted the facts and offences mentioned in our show cause notice and finally lie agreed to compound the offences departmentally in lieu of prosecution for a sum of Rs. 800 only for all the offences committed. Since the offences committed by the assessees were noticed by me on the first time, I agreed to, accept the said compounding fee of Rs. 800 for the offences committed by them. Accordingly he came forward and had given his acceptance in the form of a statement to pay Rs. 800 and since he had not brought the cash he had agreed to send a cheque for the said amount of rs. 800 tomorrow itself, i. e. , on 20th April, 1966. "

"because the assessees pleaded for consideration and lenient view I have accepted their offer of rs. 800 compounding fee without prejudice to the examination of their books of accounts for the previous period of four years aid to reopen the case if there are serious omissions and suppressions even for the earlier period. "

( 2 ) THE petitioners, however, did not pay the said sum of Rs. 800, although some time was granted by the Assistant Commissioner for payment. Ultimately, he applied to the Special First class Magistrate at Srirangapatna under section 13 (b) of the Sales Tax Act for collection of the said sum of Rs. 800. On 19th August, 1966, the Magistrate issued a warrant for collection returnable by 31st August, 1966. When the warrant was returned unexecuted it was reissued on 31st August, 1966, for collection by 15th September, 1966.

( 3 ) IN the meanwhile, the petitioners presented this civil revision petition to this Court which was admitted on 13th September, 1966.

( 4 ) IN support of the revision petition, the principal arguments addressed by Mr. K. Srinivasan for the petitioners are :

(1) That composition of an offence under section 31 of the Mysore Sales Tax Act means and could only mean, the actual receipt by the prescribed authority of the amount determined by him in terms of the section for composition of the offence; (2) That the composition is complete only on payment of the compounding fee by the assessee and acceptance thereof by the prescribed authority as composition; (3) That if the compounding fee is not paid, there is no composition at all and that therefore the proper authority under the Act is free to prosecute the assessee for the alleged offence, but has no right to call for payment of the composition amount; and, (4) That, in any event, the amount fixed by way of composition under section 31 is not an amount which can be said to be due under the Act so as to be recoverable by taking proceedings under sub-section (3) of section 13 of the Act.

( 5 ) THE principal point for consideration, determination of which will answer all the questions raised by Mr. Srinivasan, is the exact meaning to be assigned to composition of the offence within the framework of s

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