GSTAT Prayagraj says Seized Sales Notebooks Can Establish Suppressed Turnover

The GST Appellate Tribunal, Prayagraj, upheld a Section 74 demand based on three bound notebooks recording sales of ₹2.52 crore over September 2017 to March 2018. The notebooks were recovered from the taxpayer's own premises along with other business records, and the proprietor had contemporaneously explained how such duplicate pads were used for recording retail sales. The Tribunal distinguished decisions concerning unverified loose sheets and third-party records, holding that the evidence in this case was sufficiently connected to the taxpayer and remained unrebutted. However, applying the principle against placing an appellant in a worse position after appeal, it capped the tax and penalty at the amounts determined in the earlier appellate order.