The assessee, Ashok Leyland Ltd., is a firm with its factory at Ennore, within the State of Madras, where it assembles motor cars, and with an elaborate organisation spread over several States for the sale of those cars and their accessories. In the assessment year 1952-53, the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer assessed the firm to sales tax on a turnover of about 30 lakhs of rupees. He was of the view that the turnover of about 111 lakhs was not liable to be taxed under the Act. The Commercial Tax Officer took up the matter suo motu in exercise of the revisional powers vested in him by section 12 of the Madras General Sales Tax Act. He overruled the objection of the assessee, that he had no jurisdiction to revise the assessment, and eventually he held that a turnover of about 43 lakhs was also liable to be taxed.

The assessee appealed to the Appellate Tribunal. The Tribunal also negatived the contention of the assessee, that the Commercial Tax Officer had no jurisdiction to revise the assessment made by the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer. Of the turnover, the liability to tax which was in dispute, the Tribunal held that about 12 1/2 lakhs alone fell within the scope of Article 286(2) of the Constitution. The Tribunal held that the balance of the turnover was on sales completed by delivery within the State to the agents of the buyers, who were no doubt resident outside the State, and that these sales were not in the course of inter-State trade within the meaning of Article 286(2) of the Constitution. It was the correctness of that decision of the Tribunal that the assessee challenged by a petition presented under section 12-B of the Act.

We are of opinion that the Tribunal was right in negativing the claim of the assessee-petitioner, that the Commercial Tax Officer exceeded his jurisdiction in the proceedings he took against the assessee under section 12 of the Act. The contention of the assessee both before the Tribunal and before us was, that the Commercial Tax Officer's revisional authority did not extend to an inspection of material not considered by the assessing authority, the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer. It was on the basis of the accounts or the abstracts of the accounts that the petitioner furnished that the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer came to the conclusion, that a turnover of about 111 lakhs of rupees was not liable to be taxed under the Act. Whether that view was correct was what the Commercial Tax Officer had to examine. That he had the undoubted jurisdiction to do. What was the material that the Commercial Tax Officer could examine when exercising his revisional powers was the question. Learned counsel for the petitioner-assessee did not repeat before us the extreme contention he had apparently put forward before the Tribunal, that the Commercial Tax Officer could not look beyond the assessment order of the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer. Learned counsel for the petitioner complained that in addition to the material placed before the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, the Commercial Tax Officer called upon the petitioner-assessee to produce records in its possession. That, he contended, was beyond the jurisdiction of the Commercial Tax Officer.What was the record a revisional authority could examine was indicated by a Full Bench of this Court in State of Madras v. Louis Dreyfus and Co., Ltd.

"We are of the opinion that the expression 'record' would include not merely the assessment order but the entire assessment file ....."

If the assessee produced his accounts before the assessing authority and took them back, obviously it could not be said that the Commercial Tax Officer as the revision authority, could not send for the books on the narrow ground, that the books themselves were no longer in the office of the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer as part of his file. If abstracts of accounts had been filed, obviously the Commercial Tax Officer would be well within his jurisdiction to call upon the assessee to produc