INTERNATIONAL RADIO CO Vs. STATE OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE applicants deal in radios, their spare parts, gramophones, refrigerators and what have been variously described as X -ray machines, apparatus for taking X -ray photographs, X -ray equipments and X -ray apparatus by the authorities below. The point in dispute in this application concerns the last mentioned class of articles. The applicants sold 11 such articles for a total sum of Rs. 1,17,238 -12 -0 between 29th April, 1952, and 25th October, 1952. They have been held by the authorities below to be liable to the special tax under Clause (b) of Sub -section (1) of Section 6 of the Bombay Sales Tax Act of 1946 and entry No. 4 in Schedule I to the Act. The material part of Sub -section (1) of Section 6 reads as follows : -

(2.) THERE was a revision application against his order, and it was contended before the Additional Collector of Sales Tax who heard the said application that X -ray equipments generated X -rays, that as the process by which such rays were caught on the sensitive plates was radiography and shadowgraphy, it could not be the same as photography, and that the said equipments, therefore, could not be called cameras. The Additional Collector of Sales Tax, however, relied not only on the explanation given in the Hand Book referred to above, but on the popular meaning of the word camera, i.e., an apparatus designed to take photographs, and concluded that an X -ray apparatus which took X -ray photographs could be regarded as an X -ray camera. According to him the fact that an X -ray apparatus generated its own rays for taking photographs could not alter the issue, and he held that the X ray equipments in question were intended to be covered by the words "other cameras" in entry 4. The opinions of certain experts recorded in their affidavits were not held to be sufficient to displace or disprove the view taken by the Additional Collector. The revision application was accordingly dismissed by him.

(3.) WE might at this stage refer to some of the affidavits which were produced before the Additional Collector of Sales Tax. The following are some of the passages to be found in the affidavit made by Dr. C.G. Talwalkar, M.B.B.S., D.M.R.E., President of the Bombay Radiological Association : -