POOJA ENGINEERS PRIVATE LTD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a Private Limited Company carrying on business of manufacturing and sale of bakery products, has filed the present writ application for a direction to quash Circular No. Bikri-kar/Vapsi/1/99-109 dated 7-1-2000 (Annexure 7-A), issued by the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Respondent No. 2), laying down a procedure for the refund of the sales tax amounts, which were found to be collected unauthorisedly from the purchasing-dealers as well as for a direction to the respondent-authorities to refund, to the petitioner the amount of sales tax collected unauthorisedly.

(2.) The admitted fact is that the petitioner-firm is engaged in manufacturing bakery products from Maida, which is the raw-material. The petitioner is a registered dealer under the provisions of the Bihar Finance Act. It was also registered as a small scale industrial unit in 1987. The State Government with a view to accelerate the industrial production in the State issued Industrial Policy giving benefits under different heads including sales tax incentive to the units since 1986. The petitioner-unit commenced production on 12-11-1987 and availed benefit of set off of sales tax under the Industrial Policy of 1990 up to the period of 31-12-1994.

(3.) In the year 1993, the Government came out with another Industrial Policy providing for exemption from the payment of sales tax from the purchase of raw-materials for industrial units mentioned in the said policy. The said exemption was also given to the old industrial units whose investment on plant and machinery did not exceed rupees fifteen crores as on 1-4-1993. The said exemption was to remain in force for a period of seven years from the said date. The petitioner by virtue of fulfilling all the conditions was entitled to the benefit of the aforesaid Industrial policy. However, the Commercial Taxes Department issued a notification on dated 4-4-1994 imposing a condition to the extent that the unit, which had already availed the benefit under any previous Industrial Policy, is not entitled to the benefit under the said policy. In view of the aforesaid condition, after expiry of the period up to 31-12-1994, during which it was availing of the benefit of the set off of sales tax in terms of the. 1990 Policy, the petitioner paid the sales tax to the selling-dealers for the purchases made from 1995.