1969 (8) TMI 31 - SC - VAT and Sales Tax

Whether the company sold building material to the contractors during the quarters in question ?

Whether the company was a dealer in respect of building material within the meaning of the Orissa Sales Tax Act ?

Whether imposition of penalties for failure to register as a dealer was justified ?

Held that:- It is common ground that the rate mentioned against cement and structural steel is the price at which the goods were purchased by the company. If the company was charging a fixed percentage on the price paid by it for procuring such goods for storage and other incidental charges, it would be difficult to resist the conclusion that the company was not carrying on the business of selling cement and structural steel. There is, of course, no statement in the schedule that the price charged by the company in excess of the price paid by the company to its contractors for bricks was in respect of storage charges.

But neither the Tribunal nor the High Court has referred to this important piece of evidence and we are unable to decide these appeals unless we have an additional statement of facts in the light of the relevant evidence as to whether the excess charged over and above the price which the company paid for procuring cement and steel (expressly called storage charge) and bricks was intended to be profit. To enable us to answer the questions referred, it is necessary that the Tribunal should be called upon to submit a supplementary statement of the case on the questions whether the company charged any profit apart from storage charges for supplying cement and structural steel, and whether the difference between the price charged to the contractors and the price paid by the company to its suppliers for bricks was not in respect of storage and other incidental charges.