TMI Blog1970 (3) TMI 149X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ioner to the Assistant Commissioner were dismissed and thereafter the petitioner instead of preferring appeals to the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal has filed the present application for the issue of writs of certiorari to quash the orders of assessment. The ground alleged for circumventing the procedure of preferring appeals to the Tribunal and preferring revisions later to the High Court is that the petitioner was unable to prefer appeals to the Tribunal as he was not in a position to pay the tax demanded from him. We are not quite satisfied with the reason given by the petitioner for not availing himself of the remedy prescribed by statute. But none the less we have decided to dispose of the writ petitions on merits as the writ petitions were admitted in 1966 and have been pending in this court for four years and there would be no point in dismissing the writ petitions after this lapse of time on the ground that the petitioner had an adequate alternate remedy. The Fourth Schedule to the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957, contained the description of declared goods in respect of which a single point tax only was leviable under section 6 of the Act and the point at which ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... oses or authorises the imposition of a tax on the sale or purchase of declared goods, be subject to the following restrictions and conditions, namely- (a) the tax payable under that law in respect of any sale or purchase of such goods inside the State shall be levied only in respect of the last sale or purchase inside the State and shall not exceed two per cent. of the sale or purchase price. (b) ... ... ..." Section 15(a) prohibits any law of a State relating to sales tax from imposing a tax on the sale or purchase of declared goods at more than one stage and at a rate exceeding 2 per cent. The submission of Sri Dasaratharama Reddy was that if a person who merely decorticates groundnut and sells kernel is subjected to sales tax on the ground that he is a miller and if after the sale by such person the groundnuts again pass from dealer to dealer by sale, the last dealer purchasing in the State would again be subjected to tax under the second limb of item 3 of Schedule IV. That would be contrary to the provisions of section 15 of the Central Sales Tax Act. The submission of the learned Government Pleader was that once sales tax has been paid at the stage of purchase by the per ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ourth Schedule with reference to the Central Sales Tax Act to which the schedule and section 6 were subject. In that case also the learned judges recognized that the words "to mill" may mean to grind or to crush and "mill" may mean machinery employed for grinding or crushing. We are of the view that in the light shed by the Central Sales Tax Act in the context of Schedule IV the word "miller" in entry 3 is used to mean the person engaged in crushing the groundnut and extracting oil by the employment of machinery. Item 3 itself gives an indication. The second limb refers to a miller who purchases groundnuts. In both the cases, it is said that the exigibility to tax is at the point of purchase. The scheme of item 3 appears to be to make groundnuts exigible to tax at the point when they cease to be taxable commodities either when groundnuts cease to be groundnuts by being crushed into oil or when groundnuts pass from the State. In our opinion, item 3 makes groundnuts exigible to tax at the point of purchase by a person who destroys the identity of groundnuts within the State. It is from this context that the word "miller" must take its meaning and if understood in this context the wor ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... er the amendment of 1963 and that read as "a miller other than a decorticating miller". But the observations of the learned judges are of a general nature and to the extent that they go they appear to support the meaning given by us to the word "miller". We are content to say that the observations "appear" to support the meaning given by us. The learned counsel for the petitioner urged that if the word "miller" is construed as including those who do not purchase the oil-seeds for crushing, an uncertainty would be introduced into the first limb of the entry regarding the point at which tax is to be levied. The learned Government Pleader answered the argument by saying that the "first miller" alone would be liable to tax. We have already referred to the difficulty of accepting such contention. In State of Andhra Pradesh v. Lakshmi Oil Mills[1967] 20 S.T.C. 489. and Radhakrishna and Co. v. State of Andhra Pradesh[1969] 24 S.T.C. 320., the learned judges held that the "first miller" who purchased the oil-seeds was exigible to tax whether he crushed the oilseeds into oil or whether he sold the oil-seeds again as oil-seeds, that is whether he functioned as a miller or a dealer. Accordi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rchase by the first miller. In doing so, they read the word "first", which was not there, into the entry. We see no reason for amending the entry by adding the word "first". We think that all the deeming and adding can and should be avoided by literally construing the word "miller" to signify a person who functions as a miller, that is to say, who converts groundnuts into oil. if the word "miller" is so understood, it is easy to understand why the Legislature did not specify whether the purchase should be first or last purchase, in connection with a purchase by a miller, since there can only be one stage at which the groundnuts are crushed into oil. In all other cases where the same person also functions as a dealer he will be liable to tax only if the purchase can be brought within the second limb of the entry, that is, if it is the last purchase within the State. So construed the object of the Legislature to tax the goods at the point of last purchase alone before the goods lose their identity as a taxable commodity is carried out. That this is the object of the entry was also recognised by the learned Judges who decided the two cases referred to. Though we have expressed our d ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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