1972 (9) TMI 122

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..... it has been assessed under the Central Sales Tax Act. In the course of the assessment, the assessee claimed that a turnover of Rs. 3,98,029.63 represented the second or subsequent inter-State sales by transfer of documents of title to the goods during the movement of the same from this State to the State of Andhra Pradesh and that, therefore, the entire turnover is exempt from tax under section 6( .....

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..... getting the exemption under section 6(2), the assessee must show that the second and the subsequent inter-State sales were to a registered dealer. The Tribunal has found that the goods in respect of all these transactions have been supplied to the text-books department of the Andhra Pradesh Government and that the said department has not been registered as a dealer under the Central Sales Tax Act .....

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..... rned counsel, section 7(2) gives only an option to the Government department to register and it is not obligatory on the part of the Government departments to register themselves under the Act and in such cases, the selling dealer cannot be deprived of the benefit of the exemption merely because the Government departments have not registered themselves under the Act. We are not in a position to ac .....

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..... -established canon of construction of statutes that a provision providing for exemption has to be construed strictly, Admittedly, the buyer in this case, namely, the text-books department of the Andhra Pradesh Government is not a registered dealer. Therefore, section 6(2) cannot be applied to the sales in question as the sales were not to a registered dealer. The fact that section 7(2) gives some .....

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..... ether the Legislature has made the above distinction deliberately between cases of exemption and cases where the concessional rate of tax is levied, is not clear. But we cannot adopt the so-called liberal interpretation of section 6(2) as contended by the learned counsel and extend the scope of exemption in relation to sales made to persons other than registered dealers. As it is, section 6(2) doe .....

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