DY COMMISSIONER Vs. KRISHNA MOHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question in these revisions is whether shade tress out and sold as timber or firewood by owners of coffee and other plantations is exigible to tax under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act.

(2.) In Manager, Pulpally Devaswom v. State of Kerala 1977 (40) STC 350 this Court held that turnover in regard to such trees of spontaneous growth could not be taxed because:

(3.) Counsel for the Revenue contends that the decision in Pulpally Devaswom is opposed to the view taken earlier by this Court in the Kottumalai Tea Co. case (TRC. Nos. 64 & 65 of 1971) and in TRC. No. 34 of 1973. We cannot agree The question in the above cases was whether in view of the definitions in S.2(vii) and S.2(viii)(e) of the Kerala Act, the term "dealer" should be understood to denote only a person normally engaged in the business of selling and buying. And this Court held that even a person engaging in casual transactions could be regarded as a dealer in view of the wider language. The two questions specifically considered in Pulpally (40 STC. 350) and noticed in the preceding paragraph were not separately examined in those cases.