JACOB PHILIP Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is an assessee under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963. The respondent is the Revenue. The matter relates to the assessment year 1987 -88. The controversy relates to the claim of exemption pleaded by the assessee for an amount of Rs. 6,51,449 said to be the amount obtained by second sale of G.P. sheets during the year. The statutory authority has found that the assessee did not effect sales of G.P. sheets as such. The assessee cut the sheets into required sizes and shapes as required by the customers and then sold them. The assessee is a dealer in automobile spare parts. So, the G.P. sheets, cut into sizes and shapes, were taxed as "automobile spare parts" at 15 per cent. The Appellate Tribunal, the final fact -finding authority, after adverting to the plea of the assessee that the sales turnover of G.I. and G.P. sheets relates to only second sales of scheduled goods, held that the appellant/assessee has purchased G.P. sheets and G.I. sheets and converted them into certain specific sizes and shapes, and that the assessee himself has stated in the sale bills that they were so cut, sized and bended as per the specification of the customer. No material was placed before the appellate authority to show that the G.I. and G.P. sheets purchased by the assessee were sold as such. The Appellate Tribunal also found that the G.I. and G.P. sheets purchased by the assessee underwent a manufacturing process in the hands of the assessee and the materials sold become a commercially distinct and different product from the material purchased by the assessee. The exemption claimed by the assessee as second sales of scheduled goods was not found to be in order. The exemption pleaded was negatived. The order of the Tribunal is dated February 28, 1991. Aggrieved by the order of the Appellate Tribunal, the assessee has come up in revision.

(2.) WE heard counsel for the revision - petitioner Mr. A. K. Avirah. It was submitted that in cutting the G.I. and G.P. sheets into various sizes, at the specification of the customers, no manufacturing process was involved and the sheets sold in specified sizes and shapes cannot be said to be a different or distinct commercial commodity. They continued to be G.I. and G.P. sheets. We are unable to accept this plea. As the final fact -finding authority, the Appellate Tribunal has stated thus : "..... On a careful consideration of all the facts and circumstances of the case we find that the G.I. and G.P. sheets purchased by the appellant (assessee) undergo a manufacturing process in the hands of the appellant (assessee) by which the materials sold has become commercially distinct from the material purchased by the appellant/assessee."