PHOOLCHAND Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner is a dealer of stone slabs. He purchases stones from Nimbahera, straightens the edges and then sells them in the market. He pays the sales -tax at the first point while purchasing the stone slabs from Nimbahera. The learned Assistant Sales Tax Officer assessed the sales -tax on the turnover of the sale of the petitioner holding that the petitioner has carved and dressed stone from the raw material by employing labour and turned them into chokhat etc. The petitioner went in appeal before the Deputy Commissioner, Excise & Taxation (Appeals), Jaipur who rejected the appeal vide his impugned order dated 8.4.1963. Hence the petitioner has come up in revision before the Board of Revenue.

(2.) The learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that he has paid the sales tax while purchasing the stone slabs at Nimbahera and he has not manufactured the chokhats of those slabs as inferred by the lower courts. He has simply chiselled the slabs and straightened the edges. He has cited M/S Chohan Pan Bhandar vs. A.S.T.O. Beawar (RRD 1965 page 3) in which their lordships of Rajasthan High Court have held that betel leave or pan which is processed by applying chuna, katha and supari to the betel leaf makes no change in its original form till consumed.

(3.) The learned Government Advocate concedes that chowkhats were not manufactured from the stone slabs as stated in the judgments of the lower courts. He has stated that it is the interpretation or the imagination of the learned assessing authority and the Deputy Commissioner, Appeals, that the petitioner manufactured chowkhats from the stone slabs. The contention of the learned Government Advocate is that the petitioner gets the chiselling and dressing of the slabs done by employing labour which amounts to process of manufacture.