K P VAIDYANATHA IYER Vs. STATE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition is by the assessee to revise the order of the Appellate Tribunal with reference to the assessment under the General Sales tax Act for the assessment year 1949-50. It was common ground that the assesses grew sugarcane in his fields, converted the juice into jaggery and sold the jaggery for Rs. 20,536-14-0 during the course of the year; and it was on the turnover on the sales of jaggery effected during the course of the year that he was assessed. The Appellate Tribunal rejected the contentions of the assessee, (1), that he was not a dealer as defined by the Act and (2) that the sales of jaggery would be sales of agricultural produce within the meaning of the definition of "turnover" in Section 2(i) of the Act.

(2.) "Dealer" is defined as a "person who carries on the business of selling goods". What the assessee did in this particular instance was to organise the sale of jaggery, first by converting agricultural produce into the marketable commodity of jaggery, and then by selling the jaggery from time to time. In the previous yestrs, he sold the sugarcane itself which shows that there was a market for sugarcane. We are unable to see any force in the contention of the learned Advocate for the appellant, that because the assessee had not effected any sales of jaggery in the previous years he could not be deemed to be a dealer in the course of the assessment year. The Appellate Tribunal was right in taking into account the organisation behind the sales including the manufacture and it was right in holding that the as-sessee satisfied the requirements of the definition of "dealer" in Section 2 (b) of the Act.

(3.) The next point is whether the jaggery that the assessee sold was agricultural produce within the meaning of Section 2(i). What Section 2(i) exempts is the sale by a person of agricultural or horticultural produce grown by himself or grown on any land in which he has an interest whether as owner, usufructuary mortgagee, tenant or otherwise. It would appear to apply only to sales of agricultural produce as such, and not to what the agricultural produce has been converted into by a process of manufacture. In this case by a process of manufacture the agricultural produce, sugarcane, was converted into jaggery, and it was the manufactured product, jaggery, that was sold. The Appellate Tribunal was right in holding that the assessee was not entitled to the exemption implied in Section 2(i) of the Act.