STATE OF TAMIL NADU Vs. AMBIKA PRESS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY these two petitions, the State has questioned the order of the Tamil Nadu Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal (Additional Bench), Coimbatore, holding that besides printing charges for question papers and court judgments, labour charges in relation thereto should also be excluded. The Tribunal has opined that.

(2.) RESPONDING to a similar contention raised on behalf of the petitioner-State in the case of State of Tamil Nadu v. Anandam Viswanathan 1989 AIR(SC) 962, 1989 (1) JT 181, 1989 (73) STC 1, 1989 (1) Scale 176, 1989 (1) SCC 613, 1989 (1) SCR 301, 1989 (1) UJ 404, 1989 (3) SISTC 138, the Supreme Court has stated : "............ in each case the nature of the contract and the transaction must be found out. And this is possible only when the intention of the parties is found out. The fact that in the execution of a contract for work some materials are used, and the property in the goods so used, passes to the other party, the contractor undertaking to do the work will not necessarily be deemed, on that account, to sell the materials. Whether or not and which part of the job-work relates to that depends, as mentioned hereinbefore, on the nature of the transaction. A contract for work in the execution of which goods are used may take any one of the three forms as mentioned by this Court in Government of Andhra Pradesh v. Guntur Tobaccos Ltd 1965 AIR(SC) 1396, 1965 (16) STC 240, 1965 (2) SCR 167. It is relevant here to notice that the Tribunal has applied that very test and come to the above conclusion.The Supreme Court has further observed :