The power of revision under section 57 of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, is limited for assuming jurisdiction to revise the order, and once the jurisdiction is properly assumed, there is no further limitation while exercising the power.

T. D. SUGLA J. - The common question of law raised in these references at the instance of the Commissioner is :

"Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case and on a true interpretation of section 57 of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, the Tribunal was correct in coming to the conclusion that the Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax had no jurisdiction to revise the resale claim of the assessee for the period in question ?"

2. The applicant is partnership firm. The proceedings relate to its assessments under the Bombay Sales Tax Act for the periods from October 18, 1963 to November 4, 1964, from November 5, 1964 to October 24, 1965 and from October 25, 1965 to November 12, 1966. The assessments were completed on September 9, 1967, November 20, 1967 and February 7, 1969, respectively. It is pertinent to mention that the Sales Tax Officer had computed amount of deduction on account of resale claim under section 8(ii) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act by applying pro rata or proportion method as the applicant was not able to identity its resales with the purchases from registered dealers. The amounts of deduction for the three periods were computed by the Sales Tax Officer at Rs. 11,94,078, Rs. 8,48,778 and Rs. 9,48,872 respectively.

3. Subsequently, the Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax felt that the Sales Tax Officer should have further reduced the gross turnover by sales exempt under section 11 before applying the pro rata formula and that the assessment orders were, thus, erroneous. Accordingly, after allowing the applicant opportunity of being heard, he revised the orders of assessment under section 57 of the Act reducing the amounts of deduction under section 8(ii) respectively to Rs. 8,78,987, Rs. 7,12,921 and Rs. 6,74,479. The aforesaid orders were confirmed in appeal. Second appeals were, however, allowed by the Tribunal. The Tribunal held that the pro rata formula applied by the Sales Tax Officer did not suffer from any illegality, irregularity or impropriety so as to give the Assistant Commissioner jurisdiction to revise the assessments under section 57.

4. It is common ground that the applicant is entitled to deduction under section 8(ii). It is also common ground that in view of this Court's decision in the case of Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Berar Oil Industries [1975] 36 STC 473, pro rata/proportion formula can be applied for computing the amount of deduction under section 8(ii) in a case where identification of resales covered by that sub-section with the purchases from registered dealers is not possible. The dispute is restricted to the correctness of the formula applied by the Sales Tax Officer. In this context, it is desirable to refer to the orders of revision at pages 24/25, 31 and 35 in the respective paper books. The only mistake, according to the Assistant Commissioner, committed by the Sales Tax Officer was that while applying the percentage of purchases from registered dealers to total purchases reduced by purchases on form 14, he had reduced the gross turnover by sales on from 14 only but not also by sales exempt under section 11.

5. The question, therefore, is whether non-reduction of gross turnover further by sales exempt under section 11 before applying the percentage of purchases from registered dealers to total purchases reduced by purchases on form 14 was erroneous so as to give jurisdiction to the Assistant Commissioner to revise the assessments under section 57 or whether this was only a matter of opinion. The case of the department is that after the order dated December 31, 1974, passed by the Special Bench of the Sales Tax Tribunal in the case of Pratap Singh and Sons, the pro rata formula or proportion method was settled so far as the State of Maharashtra was concerned and since the formula applied by the Sales Tax Officer was contrary to the one approved by the Special Bench of the Tribunal, the application of that formula was erroneous and the Assistant Commissioner had j