P. JANARDHANA REDDY Vs. SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY the impugned memo dated 10.7.1997 the Engineer -in -Chief (third respondent) informed the fourth respondent that the sales tax element at 10% on bitumen and 5% on hire charges of machinery has to be recovered from the bills of contractors. The validity of this Circular Memo has been challenged in this writ petition. A similar issue was dealt with by a Division Bench of this Court (of which one of us (PVRR, J) was a member) in Writ Petition Nos. 30691 and 33284 of 1997. Accordingly, we clarify that as far as the material viz., Bitumen supplied by the department is concerned, Section 5 -H read with Rule 17 -I(1) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act has no application and that the Government can recover the tax liability borne by them by way of reimbursement from the petitioner. At the same time, in the concluding paragraph, the Bench observed as follows :