VARASUKI AND COMPANY Vs. PROVINCE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against the judgment and decree of the District Judge of Tirunelveli in O.S. No. 1 of 1947 and raises an interesting question of law. The appellant, who was the plaintiff, filed a suit against the Government for a declaration that the sales tax collected from him to the extent of Rs. 1, 202-8-6 on the turnover calculated only on the price of the gunny bags containing the salt sold by him (excluding, of course, the price of the salt, which is exempted from sales tax) was illegally collected and ought to be refunded to him as salt could not be sold except after being put into gunny bags and he had merely purchased the gunny bags from dealers for the sake of filling them with salt and had included only the cost price of the gunny bags in the ultimate price charged by him for the salt bags. The learned District Judge held that only salt had been exempted from sales tax and not the gunny bags in which it had been packed and that the gunny bags could not be regarded as inevitably included in the exemption, and that anybody who buys and sells gunny bags, like the appellant, even though along with the salt, would be liable for sales tax as being a "dealer" of "goods" within the meaning of Section 2(b) of the General Sales Tax Act, 1939. So he dismissed the appellant's suit with costs. We have perused the records and heard the learned counsel for the appellant and the learned Government Pleader contra. The learned counsel for the appellant relied on three main contentions. The first was that the appellant was not a "dealer" within the meaning of Section 2(b) as he was not carrying on the business of buying and selling gunny bags (which were admitted to be "goods"), but only the business of buying and selling salt.

(2.) IT appears to us that he was carrying on the business of buying and selling gunny bags also in addition to the business of buying and selling salt. IT is admitted that he bought the gunny bags and sold them. IT is obvious, and it is conceded by learned counsel for the appellant, that a man may carry on a number of businesses in different "goods", separately or jointly. His contention is that when any article is incapable of being sold without being packed in gunny bags, the gunny bags must be exempted from the sales tax when the article, viz., salt, is also exempted, on the ground of "necessity". We cannot agree. IT seems to us that this is a matter more for moving the Government to exempt the gunny bags, in which salt has to be packed for being sent to the customers, in addition to the salt itself, as "necessity" will be of no avail as the customers could have supplied the gunny bags or taken away the salt themselves. The Government, we understand, have been moved subsequently for the amendment of the rules and to exempt the price of gunny bags also from sales tax, and that they have conceded this demand. That itself shows that, originally, there was no such intention on the part of the Government to exempt the gunny bags, and this suit relates to the period when gunny bags were not exempted. On principle, it seems to us that any exemption of any article must be strictly construed and confined to the exemption itself and not extended.

(3.) PURCHASING the gunny bags and had only recovered their actual price from the customers, and that, as sales tax had been paid on the original sale by the dealers in gunny bags to him, a second sales tax should not be levied, in justice and equity, now. There is no evidence to show that he was acting as "an agent of the customers" in PURCHASING these gunny bags. No customer wrote to him any letter asking him to buy the gunny bags on his behalf, or sent him an advance for purchase of gunny bags nor were accounts for the gunny bags alone rendered by the appellant to his customers. The question of the second payment of sales tax is not material as in some cases sales tax has to be paid, under our rules, twice over not only on these articles but in the case of many others.