The burden of proving that a transaction is a consignment sale lies on the dealer under Section 6A of the CST Act; where official records confirm that 'F' Forms were never issued and consignees deny receipt, the claim for tax exemption must be rejected.

ROHIT KAPOOR , J.

1. This judgment and order shall dispose of the present batch of six appeals, as according to the learned counsel for the parties, the issue involved in all the aforementioned appeals, is identical. The appellant-State of Punjab has filed the present appeals under Section 68 of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005 (for short ‘PVAT Act’) assailing the common order dated 20.12.2019, passed by the Punjab Value Added Tax, Tribunal (for short ‘VAT Tribunal’), whereby the appeals filed by the respondent-assessee(s) have been allowed, and the assessment orders passed by the Designated Officer and orders of the First Appellate Authority, have been set aside. The following substantial questions of law are claimed in all the Appeals :-

“i. Whether benefit of consignment sale can be allowed even if the validity of the requisite 'F' Form is denied by the issuing authority?

ii. Whether the impugned order dated 20.12.2019 is based on presumptions and assumptions of the Ld. VAT Tribunal, Punjab and thus, is liable to be set aside?

iii. Whether the Ld. VAT Tribunal has erred in setting aside the assessment order and allowing benefit of consignment sales to the respondent/assessee by disregarding the inter-departmental communications, whereby, it stands confirmed that no statutory 'F' Form was issued by the Sales Tax Department to the dealers to whom consignment sales have been made?

iv. Whether the Ld. VAT Tribunal, Punjab has erred in disregarding the investigation conducted by the department only on the surmise and conjecture that the same appears to be over-zealous?

2. The facts are being extracted from VAT Appeal No. 15 of 2021, for the sake of brevity. The respondent-assessee, M/s Kamal Enterprises, Anaj Mandi, Samrala, Ludhiana is a proprietorship firm of one Sh. Vijay Kumar, and the said assessee was registered with the appellant department and was assigned TIN No. 03781066527. The respondent-assessee has got two sister concerns i.e. M/s Anpurna Traders Anaj Mandi Samrala, having TIN No. 03761130847 and M/s A.K. Traders, Anaj Mandi Samrala, which has been assigned TIN No. 03781099113. Mr. Kamal Kumar, who is the brother of Vijay Kumar is the proprietor of M/s Kamal Enterprises, whereas Mrs. Mamta Rani wife of Vijay Kumar is the proprietor of M/s A.K. Traders. The business activities in all three concerns, which were trading in Karyana, Pulses, Ground Nut etc. are carried out from the same premises, jointly.

3. During the relevant assessment years, the respondent-assessee filed its annual return in form VAT-20 depicting the total sales as Rs.18,00,97,534/-, out of which, an amount of Rs.1,65,10,371/- was shown as consignment sales. It was claimed by the said respondent-assessee that consignment sales were made to registered dealers in Delhi, namely M/s Mahavir Prasad Deepak Kumar, (TIN 07960278722), M/s Shiv Kumar Sai Nath (TIN 07570261719), and M/s Murlidhar Krishan Kumar (TIN 07230270442) and in support of the claim, F forms had been furnished.

4. It transpires that upon enquiry having been initiated by the Office of Mobile Wing, Chandigarh, the Value Added Tax Officer, Ward 28, Veopar Bhawan, New Delhi vide letter No. 1328 dated 24.03.2008 had informed the Appellant that the aforesaid Delhi dealers, had denied having purchased any goods from the Respondent Dealers during the Year 2005-