TARSEM LAL SHAM LAL Vs. ASSESSING AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHETHER chillies are exigible to purchase tax under the Punjab General Sales Tax Act (hereinafter called the Act) or not is the short point involved in Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 6318, 6390 and 7421 of 1975, which are being disposed of by this Judgment.

(2.) IT is submitted on behalf of the petitioners that chillies should be regarded as vegetables, which are mentioned in Schedule B to the Act and under Section 6 of the Act no tax can be levied on goods specified in the first column of this schedule. It is conceded that if a commodity is rightly included in Schedule C to the Act, it can be exigible to purchase tax. The precise argument raised is that it is not open to the State Government to include an article which answers the description of vegetables in Schedule C to the Act in exercise of powers under Section 31 of the Act. The constitutional validity of Section 31 of the Act is also challenged on the ground that it confers wide and arbitrary power on the State Government to specify commodities on which purchase tax can be levied.

(3.) IN the context in which the chillies were being considered by the Supreme Court along with lemons, it is obvious that their Lordships regarded those chillies as vegetables which were being used for the tables. This Judgment is no authority for the proposition that even dried chillies which are usually sold by the grocers can also be regarded as vegetables. No order of assessment has been passed in either of these cases and in this situation I cannot assume that the petitioner in these cases were dealing in green chillies alone, nor can such a controversial question of fact be properly determined in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution. The petitioners would have been well-advised to wait for the determination of this fact by an Assessing Authority whose Judgment could be more properly questioned before the Appellate Tribunal. This ground alone is sufficient to non-suit the petitioners.