STATE OF KERALA Vs. A PAREED PILLAITLKER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal of the State is a classic illustration of the unlimited disabilities of that institution. It is a standing monument of bureaucratic indifference in its prime responsibility of tax collection. The story is weary, sprawling as it does over an extensive period of time. The actual contentions had added complications due to the criminal neglect of the officers and servants of the State. It is better to slice the preface and state the facts straightway.

(2.) ALWAYE had hectic commercial activity even when it was a small town of the princely State of Travancore. The perennial Periyar, meandering through the town, its bathing ghats and market place, used to fertilise with its floods, the lower planes, where lush green coconut palms provided prosperity for the cultivating community. Oil trade could be a profitable venture of an enthusiastic entrepreneur. A Pareed Pillai and Bros., a firm, was one among the many which had extensive trade in oil. The extensive activities of the firm, reaching even the upper regions of the Indian Union are gatherable from a criminal judgment of this Court reported two decades back. [Vide Pareed Pillai v. State, (1969) KLT 155].

(3.) THE arrears of tax for the periods 1958 -59 to 1962 -63 remained unpaid. For reasons not easily discernible, recovery of the tax due was indeed slow. Sales tax (not payable by a dealer, but capable of being passed on to the purchaser and as such much different from income -tax) is levied as soon as the taxable event - the sale - takes place. Its assessment quantifies the liability. The demand notice which accompanies the assessment order stipulates the time for payment. If the demand is not honoured, recovery is permissible. The State is armed with weapons, sufficient, and even drastic in their character, for the realisation of its dues. Special modes of recovery have been conceded to the State in addition to the usual ones. The Revenue Recovery Act, effective and exhaustive in its provisions, could be pressed into service for the realisation of arrears of revenue. Sales tax remaining unpaid by a dealer, is an arrear of revenue which is recoverable by employing the machinery of the Revenue Recovery Act. Neither the tax officers nor the revenue officials had evinced any anxiety to finalise the assessment and realise the revenue in time. Things drifted merrily for all but the State.