The assessing authority should act in a quasi-judicial function, following the principles of natural justice and exercising the powers conferred by the Act as a court of law.

B. Rajendran :- The assessee a dealer in silver articles and leg chains have reported a total and taxable turnover of Rs. 77,53,957 and Rs. 42,02,730, respectively for the year 1993-94 under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959. The assessing officer had disallowed the claim of exemption towards the sale of silver anklets at Rs. 12,25,023 and taxed the turnover at three per cent single point tax and also disallowed the bought note purchases of new silver anklets at Rs. 13,41,528 and this in turn has enhanced turnover of the assessee to Rs. 25,68,258 with the tax of Rs. 50,217, surcharge of Rs. 7,533 and additional sales tax of Rs. 38,534 and penalty of Rs. 60,689. The assessee disputed regarding such tax liability and the levy or penalty before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, Salem in A.P. No. TNGST 367/95. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner on verification of facts allowed the appeal in full by its order dated March 8, 1999.

Aggrieved by the order of the first appellate authority, the Deputy Commissioner of Salem has preferred the State appeal before the Tribunal. Before the Tribunal, the Revenue mainly placed reliance on the inspection made by Enforcement Wing Officer in the assessee's place of business on August 23, 1993 and the Revenue also relied on the fact that the dealers being a manufacturer had not maintained and produced manufacturing-cum-stock account in form XXX before the officers. The Revenue has also pleaded that on comparing the actual stock with book stock it was found that there was an excess stock of 31.5 gms. and a deficit stock of 253 gms. in certain items of silver articles and the Revenue has also found that there was no stock of silver anklets or the waist cord as on the date of inspection. The assessee had claimed exemption towards the sale of silver anklets at Rs. 12,25,023 and to verify the genuineness, the assessee was summoned to produce the accounts on three occasions. The accounts were produced subsequently, but not before the Enforcement Wing Officers. Regarding the bought note purchases, summons were issued at random by the Department to the 14 sellers, out of which, five summons were returned unserved with the endorsement "no such address" and nine summons on whom the notices were served did not reply to the same. On consideration of the fact that the five summons were returned unserved, the Department treated the bought note purchases as bogus. Similarly, in the sale bill of leg chains, the Department contended that only the weight and amount were mentioned and the name of the purchasers and address were not noted. The Department also contended that the non-availability of stock of leg chains and waist cord at the time of inspection proves that the dealers were in the habit of selling silver articles to customers by raising sales of leg chain bills to circumvent/utilize the exemption granted by the Department. Based on all these allegations, the Tribunal after elaborate discussion and completely going into the merits of the case ultimately dismissed the appeal of the Revenue and confirmed the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, Salem, clearly giving a finding that there was no bogus activities. Aggrieved against the order of the Tribunal, the Revenue has come forward with the present appeal.

We have heard Mr. K. Radhakrishnan, the learned Government Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. C. Sivasubramanian, the learned counsel for the respondent.

The learned Government Advocate wanted to make out a case on the following questions of law :

"1. Whether, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the Tribunal is legally correct in having affirmed the order of the first appellate authority while the assessee had claimed exemption from tax on the purchase of silver leg chains for Rs. 13,41,528 and sales of silver leg chains for Rs. 12,25,023 and, therefore, the burden of proof that those transactions were not liable to tax shall be upon the dealers as enjoined under s