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1955 (3) TMI 16

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..... mount charged) as the considera- tion for the sale or purchase of goods (whether such consideration be cash or deferred payment or any other thing of value), including any sums charged by the dealer for anything done in respect of the goods sold at the time of or before the delivery of the goods and any other sums charged by the dealer, whatever be the description, name or object thereof." (We are not concerned in this enquiry with the other provisions of the amended section). Prior to the amendment, section 2(i) read thus: "'Turnover' means the aggregate amount for which goods are either bought by or sold by a dealer, whether for cash or for deferred payment or other valuable consideration provided that the proceeds of the sale by a person of agricultural or horticultural produce grown by himself or grown on any land in which he has an interest whether as owner, usufructuary mortgagee, tenant or otherwise, shall be excluded from his turnover." Interpreting the definition of turnover as it stood prior to the amendment by the Legislature of the Andhra State a Bench of the Madras High Court in Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Coimbatore v. Krishnaswamy(1), declared that the .....

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..... ng this position to be correct, what is argued by the Advocate-General is that by deleting section 8-B and section 8-C from the Statute Book, the power given to a registered dealer to collect the tax was withdrawn. To appreciate this contention, it is necessary to refer to section 8-B which is in the following words: "Section 8-B. (i) No person who is not a registered dealer shall collect any amount by way of tax under this Act, nor shall a registered dealer make any such collection except in accordance with such condi- tions and restrictions, if any, as may be prescribed: Provided that the State Government may exempt persons who are not registered dealers from the provisions of this sub-section until such date, not being later than the 1st day of April, 1948, as the State Government may direct. (2) Every person who has collected or collects any amount by way of tax under this Act, on or after the 1st day of April, 1947, shall pay over to the State Government within such time and in such manner as may be prescribed, all amounts so collected by him if they are in excess of the tax, if any, paid by him for the period during which the collections were made; and, in default of such p .....

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..... rn- ment. Sub-rule (8) says: "The assessing authority may call for and examine the accounts of the registered dealer for the purpose of satisfying himself that the dealer has paid in full the amount or amounts collected by him by way of tax or taxes, as required by condition (ii) in sub-rule (7): Provided that this power shall be exercised before the expiry of two years next succeeding that in which the collections were made. (9) If the assessing authority is satisfied that any amount or amounts collected by the dealer by way of tax or taxes have not been paid by him to the State Government in any year as required by con- dition (ii) in sub-rule (7), the assessing authority shall issue a notice to the dealer in Form B-2 specifying therein the total sum so withheld by the dealer and the dealer shall pay such sum at the time and in the manner specified therein." Before it can be said that the whole tax structure which has been in vogue for several years has been altered something more is necessary than the mere omission of a provision in the Act which performs the same function by implication as the rules extracted above. Further, Form A prescribed for the return of turnover contai .....

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..... he same manner as that of any other author, and the language of every enactment must be construed as far as pos- sible in accordance with the terms of every other statute which it does not in express terms modify or repeal. The law, therefore, will not allow the revocation or alteration of statute by construction when the words may be capable of proper operation without it. It cannot be assumed that Parliament has given with one hand what it has taken away with another. But it is impossible to construe absolute contradic- tions. Consequently, if the provisions of a later Act are so inconsistent with, or repugnant to, those of an earlier Act that the two cannot stand together, the earlier stands impliedly repealed by the later." Again at page 164 it is stated: "When the later of two general enactments is couched in negative terms, it is difficult to avoid the inference that the earlier one is impliedly repealed by it. For instance, where a general Act exempted from licensing regulations the sale of a certain kind of beer and a sub- sequent one enacted that 'no beer' should be sold without a licence, it would obviously be impossible to save the former from the repeal implied in the l .....

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..... 2 F.C. 33. (2) [1953] 4 S.T.C. 133; (1953) 1 M.L.J. 743. which only provides for levy of tax on sale of goods as the very con- ception underlying the Act implies. To accept the connotation given to it by the Advocate-General would be to unduly enlarge the scope of the definition of turnover. We must also observe that, if, as argued by the Advocate-General, the authority given to the dealer to collect the tax from the purchaser was withdrawn by the omission of section 8-B(1), there is no need for including tax collected by the dealer within the definition of turnover. The question of levying tax on the tax collected by the dealer would only arise if he is permitted to collect the tax. In our view, the definition of "turnover" as amended by the Andhra State Legislature is not comprehensive enough to include sales tax col- lected by the dealer. It follows that the conclusion of the Appellate Tribunal is unassailable. In this view of the matter, it is not neces- sary for us to go into the larger question relating to the competence of the Provincial Legislature to define turnover embracing sales tax while legislating under the aforementioned entry. In the result, the petition is dismi .....

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