(1.) THE petitioner applied for registration under the Bengal Finance (Sales-tax) Act, 1941. the petitioner declared in the application in forms IA and IC that the petitioner was a reseller of processed paper and processed board. the Commercial Tax Officer by his order dt. 16th Aug., 1973 rejected the said application on the ground that the petitioner dealt with articles which were notified commodities under the West Bengal (Sales-tax) Act, 1954 and therefore, the petitioner was not entitled to be registered under the Bengal Finance (Sales-tax) Act, 1941. From the aforesaid order there as an application for revision and by the order dt. 22nd Dec., 1973 the Asstt. Commissioner of Commercial Taxes affirmed the order of the Commercial Tax Officer and rejected the petitioner's application. THEreupon, there was a further revision application before the Addl. Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, West Bengal, and by the order dt. the 23rd of July, 1974 the Addl. CIT has rejected the said revision application and affirmed the order of the Commercial Tax Officer. THE propriety and the validity of the aforesaid three orders are the subject matters of challenge in this application under Art. 226 of the Constitution.
(2.) UNDER the scheme of the Bengal Finance (Sales-tax) Act, 1941 hereinafter referred to as 1941 Act transactions or sales in respect of all commodities except those which are a specified in the first column of Sch. I are taxable but in 1954 West Bengal ST Act, 1954 came into effect, which was to impose a tax on the sale of certain notified commodities in West Bengal. UNDER s. 223 of the 1954 Act it is provided that nothing in the 1941 Act should apply to a notified commodity from the date on which the said commodity was notified under s. 25 of the 1954 Act. Sec. 25 of the said Act gives powers to the State Government to specify commodities taxable under the 1954 Act. The effect therefore is that while under the 1941 Act all goods come within the purview of that Act except goods which are excluded by the provision of s. 6 of that Act, under the 1954 Act articles to come under the 1954 must be notified or specified and those specified goods under the 1954 Act would by virtue of s. 23 of the Act go out of purview of 1941 Act. Pursuant to the aforesaid authority of s. 25 of the 1954 Act on 10th May, 1963 a notifications was issued making amongst others the following commodities notified goods :
(3.) IN considering this question certain broad principles have to be borne in mind. IN order to come within 1954 Act the articles must be specified by notifications; whatever was not notified or specified would not come within the purview of 1954 Act. Whatever did not come within the purview of 1954 Act would come within the purview of 1951 Act, subject the exclusive under s. 6 of the 1941 Act. A taxing statute and its provisions should be strictly construed so that its incidence was not extended beyond the sanction of law. IN case of doubt such interpretation should be preferred which benefited the person who would be liable under the Act. The intention to impose a charge must be shown by clear and unambiguous language used. The subject of the tax must be clear and the object of the levy must be definite. If the provisions were susceptible to two meaning, the Courts would prefer that meaning which was more favourable to the subject. See the observations of the Division Bench of this Court in the case of the State of West Gengal vs. Lala Chand Agrawalla, 77 CWN 910 and the decision of Anil Kumar Sen, J. in the case of Lalchand Agarwalla and Ors. vs. State of West Bengal and Ors., 76 CWN 120 and also the unreported decision of mine in the case of INdian Tobacco Company Limited vs. Director of Entry Taxes, Government of West Bengal Civil Rule No. 2787 W of 1971. There must be a definite identifiable test in order to attract liability to tax and in the absence of any identifiable standard it would naturally give rise to the scope for arbitrary assessment at the hands of different authorities. Therefore, there must be a clear definition of an item which should be incapable of giving rise to a confounding controversy. There should be a uniform and definite test. See the observations of the Supreme Court in the case of Union of INdian vs. The Tata Iron and Steel Co. Ltd., AIR (1975) (SC) 769 : (1975) CTR (SC) 40. Where, however, two alternative interpretations were possible of the scope and applicability of an object of tax and the taxing authorities adopt a reasonable view relating thereto which is favourable to the Revenue such finding of the authorities cannot be interfered with by High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution even though another view contrary to one adopted is in favour of the subject. See the observation of the Supreme Court in V.V. Iyer vs. Jasjit Singh, Collector of Customs and Anr, AIT (1973) (SC) 194.