HASSAN Vs. SALES TAX OFFICER, MANJERI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This batch of writ petitions challenges the legality of the General Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1960 (III of 1960). The aforesaid Act consists of 4 Sections. The first contains the Title, and the fourth is concerned with the repeal, which leaves the following sections:

(2.) The circumstances, that preceded the aforesaid Act, may be shortly narrated. The tax under the principal Act, No. XI of 1125, is charged under S.3(1), which provides that, subject to other provisions, every dealer should pay for each year a tax on his total turnover for such year; and the tax would be calculated at the rates specified in column (3) of Schedule I for every rupee in the turnover relating to the goods noted against them in column (2) thereof, and at the rate of two naye paise for every rupee ia the turnover relating to all other goods. S.3(4) enacts that for the purposes of the Section, the turnover should be determined in accordance with the prescribed Rules ; and S.3 (5) that the buyer or the seller, but not both, should be taxed in respect of the same transaction of sale, and where a dealer has been taxed in respect of the purchase of any goods, he should not again be taxed in respect of any sale of such goods effected by him. The two terms of 'turnover' and 'prescribed' used in the Section, have been defined earlier in S.2, by which 'turnover' is to mean the aggregate amount, for what goods are either bought by or sold by a dealer, and 'prescribed' to be prescribed by Rules made under the Act. S.5 authorises exemptions and reductions of tax in certain cases, and originally consisted of seven clauses, out of which, clauses (ii), (iv) and (v) have been deleted. The last clause of the Section, before the amendment introduced by S.2 of the Amendment Act, that is challenged by these writ petitions ran as follows :

(3.) It is common ground that the notification was issued under the aforesaid clause, which is dated September 28, 1957, and was published in the Kerala Gazette Extraordinary, on September 30, 1957. The notification states that in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (vii) of S.5 of the General Sales Tax Act (Act XI of 1125), the Government of Kerala hereby specify the point mentioned in column (3) of the Schedule, hereto appended, as the point liable to tax under S.3(1) on the goods mentioned in column (2). The Schedule consisted of 40 items and the third column specifies the taxable point of some goods to be the first sale and of others to be the last purchase points in the State by a dealer, who be not exempt from taxation under S.3(3).