TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1961 (8) TMI 23
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....ruggists Association, Jabalpur, has been impleaded as a petitioner as they are stated to be interested in the result of these proceedings. In this order we will refer the petitioner No. 1 as "the petitioner". 2.. The petitioner carries on business of selling medicinal preparations, and a notice was issued against him to pay sales tax on the turnover in the assessment year. The sales included some medicinal preparations containing alcohol. It is the assessment of sales tax on these medicinal preparations which is challenged in this petition. The amount comes to about Rs. 900 only. 3.. The petitioner's case is that the State Government had power to levy excise duty on these preparations under the Central Provinces and Berar Excise Act, 1915....
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....ore us by Shri R.K. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner, that during the year under assessment no excise duty was paid. Exhibits P-2 and P-3, which have been filed along with the petition, relate to duties paid in 1947-48. There is nothing to substantiate the statement that excise duty was paid to any Government in the year of assessment. The statement to that effect in paragraph 4 of the petition is, to say the least, made carelessly. 6.. The first contention of Shri R.K. Pandey is that the State Government has no power to levy sales tax on the sale of medicinal and toilet preparations. He relies on Entry 84 in List 1 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. That entry gives power to the Central Government to impose duties of e....
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.... liquid consisting of or containing alcohol". Reading these two definitions together, medicinal and toilet preparations, which are liquids and which contain alcohol, would be liable to excise duty. 8.. Section 27-A was introduced in the Excise Act by the Adaptation Order, 1937. In sub-section (2) the following was added as clause (c) by the Adaptation Order, 1950, viz: "(c) any duty on medicinal or toilet preparations containing alcohol." The effect of adding this clause was that the power of the State Government to levy such duty was preserved, if it was being so levied under the existing law prior to the commencement of the Constitution. This adaptation was obviously made to give effect to Article 372 of the Constitution which continued....
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....xcise Act as continued by the adaptation under Article 372 of the Constitution. Even apart from the specific provision in the Act of 1955, the repeal follows from the provisions of Article 372 itself which provides that the laws in force before the commencement of the Constitution "shall continue in force therein until altered or repealed or amended by a competent Legislature or other competent authority." The Parliament was the competent Legislature to impose excise duty on medicinal and toilet preparations and as it framed the necessary law in 1955, the State law could no longer continue in force. 11.. Shri R.K. Pandey contended that the repeal clause either had the effect of repealing the whole of the Excise Act or it repealed nothing. ....