CONCAP CAPACITORS Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE tax revision cases are at the instance of the dealers, who are the manufacturers as well as the traders registered under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 (for short, "the APGST Act") as well as under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (for short, "the CST Act"), directed against the orders of the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal where the Tribunal negatived the claim of the dealers that the item, which they are manufacturing or dealing with, viz. , capacitors, is exigible to tax at concessional rate as "electronic goods" in terms of various Government Orders issued from time to time. As the common issue is involved in all these matters, they are disposed of by this common judgment for the sake of convenience.

(2.) THE common issue that arises for consideration is whether the "capacitors" are to be treated as "electronic goods" within the meaning of that term under various Government Orders, viz. , G. O. Ms. No. 864, dated September 7, 1993, G. O. Ms. No. 252, dated May 19, 1995 and G. O. Ms. No. 653 dated July 31, 1997. The assessing authorities in some of the cases while framing assessments accepted the claim treating the "capacitors" as "electronic goods" and levied concessional rate of tax, while in some of the cases, the assessing officers negatived the claim as to the concessional rate of tax leviable on the "capacitors" sold by them. Where the assessees are not successful before the assessing authorities, they have preferred appeals, while in the cases where the assessing authorities accepted the claim of the dealers, the assessments were revised by the Deputy Commissioner (CT ). Similarly, where the appeals were allowed, such orders were revised by the appropriate revisional authority and finally all the matters went in appeals before the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal. Though the Appellate Tribunal disposed of the appeals under different orders, but the conclusion is identical negativing the claim of the dealers that "capacitors" are not "electronic goods", but are to be treated as "electric goods" exigible to normal rate of tax.

(3.) THE learned Senior Counsel Sri S. R. Ashok, appearing for the dealers contended that the Government with an intention to encourage the industries, especially the industries that are manufacturing particular type of goods, which would come within the definition of the term "electronic goods", have issued orders from time to time giving concessional rate of tax instead of normal rate as was fixed under the Schedules to the Act. According to the learned counsel, when once the Government has issued orders purporting to grant the benefit of concessional rate of tax, the same has to be construed liberally so as to serve the purpose for which they are issued. The learned counsel also contended that such concessional notifications were issued from time to time and G. O. Ms. Nos. 520 and 521, dated July 20, 1988 were issued under the provisions of the APGST Act and the CST Act respectively, reducing the rate of tax to two per cent as against the normal rate of 16 per cent under entry 38 of the First Schedule to the APGST Act. It is stated that the said notification has even defined the term "electronic goods", apart from specifying as many as 12 items, which would come within the above term of "electronic goods". In addition, as there was certain difficulty in ascertaining which are the items of goods, which would come under the said definition of "electronic goods", on the representations seeking clarification, the Government of Andhra Pradesh issued a memo dated June 1, 1989 clarifying the position and informing the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes that the Government has decided that the list of electronic items prepared by the Electronics Commission may be followed for the purpose of concessional rate of tax on "electronic goods" ordered in G. O. Ms. Nos. 520 and 521. In terms of the said memo issued by the Government, the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes issued a circular dated July 13, 1989 clarifying the above position as specified in the Memo of the Government and the assessing authorities are requested to take action accordingly.