WIPRO ENTERPRISES (P) LTD Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these petitioners being the companies incorporated under the provisions of erstwhile Companies Act, 1956 are knocking at the doors of Writ Court for laying a challenge to the Orders of Assessment/Reassessment made or sought to be made under the provisions of Sec.39 of the Karnataka Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (hereafter "2003 Act") mainly on the ground that their branches or units cannot be treated as separate "legal persons" and therefore supply of goods from one branch to another in the State does not amount to "sale" so as to attract the statutory levy.

(2.) After service of notice, the respondents having entered appearance through the learned Addl. Govt. Advocate resist the writ petitions contending that the branches/units of each of the petitioner-corporate bodies on being registered as separate dealers become legal entities independent of their parental corporate body and therefore the supply of goods from one unit to another amounts to "sale" as extensively defined in the Act, attracting the levy; it is also contended that the writ petitions are misconceived when there is the statutory remedy of appeal availing to the petitioners.

(3.) Since substantially similar questions of law & facts arise from these cases, all they are taken up for final hearing together so that the same are disposed off by this common judgment, as suggested at the Bar. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and having perused the petition papers, this Court frames the following questions of law for consideration: