COMMISSIONER SALES TAX Vs. CHHOTOO RAM HUKUM CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole question for determination in this revision by the Commissioner of Sales Tax under the U.P. Sales Tax Act is whether the view taken by the Sales Tax Tribunal, Kanpur, that no tax was payable by the dealer, opposite party, in this Court, on sale of pulses worth Rs. 45,636.87 purchased by him from some registered dealers on behalf of ex-U. P. principals was sound.

(2.) The Tribunal, as is clear from its order dated 18th March, 1981, was called upon to determine the question of the dealer's liability to purchase tax upon the aforesaid turnover alone. It noticed in its judgment the case of the dealer that pulses worth the amount aforesaid had been purchased for ex-U. P. dealers and as such, were not liable to tax in his hands. The Tribunal took note of the decision rendered by this Court in Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Hanuman Trading Co. [1979] 43 STC 408 ; 1979 UPTC- 809, wherein this Court had taken the view that where orders were placed by ex-U.P. principals to agents in U. P. and the purchases made by the said agents were despatched outside the State, the agents only charging their commission - for it, the transaction became one in the course of inter-State sale for the goods moved as a result of the contract between the ex-U. P. purchaser and the commission agent, which contract alone occasioned the movement of the goods outside the State. The Tribunal, without ascertaining any other fact than the one that purchases had been made by the dealer at the instance of ex-U. P. principals held the turnover not liable to tax in the hands of the dealer.

(3.) For the applicability of the dictum of this Court in the case of Hanuman Trading Co. [1979] 43 STC 408; 1979 UPTC 809, what is necessary is that the contract, albeit orally, between the ex-U. P. principals and the commission agent, should occasion the movement of the goods outside the State of U. P. after their purchase by the commission agent in pursuance of the instructions received from the ex-U. P. principal. This is the view which has been accepted by this Court in Commissioner of Sales Tax, U. P. v. Chhotey Lal Parmeshwar Lal (printed at page 416 infra) 1981 ATJ 149. The observations made by this Court in that case were that :