TATA STEEL LIMITED Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition has been preferred against the order passed by the Commercial Taxes Tribunal Jharkhand, Ranchi in Review Case No. J.R. 08/2012 order dated 14.2.2013 which is at Annexure -7 to the memo of this petition whereby learned Tribunal has confirmed the order passed by the very same Tribunal dated 11.11.2009 in a Revision Case No. J.R. 1392/2001, for the assessment year 1992 -93 under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956.

(2.) COUNSEL appearing for the petitioner argued out the case at length and has submitted that the respondent -State has presumed the several transactions as inter -state sale, without appreciating the fact that from the manufacturing place of Jamshedpur, in fact the movements of goods in question have never taken place from one State to another State. At the relevant time in the year 1992 -93, in the erstwhile State of Bihar the movements of the goods in question were from Jamshedpur to various stockyards and to conversion agents as mentioned in paragraph no. 13 of the impugned order. For the ready reference, paragraph no. 13 of the impugned order reads as under:

(3.) IT is further submitted by counsel appearing for the petitioner that out of the aforesaid dispatches of goods within the erstwhile State of Bihar, the respondents have presumed these movements of the goods as inter -state sale in absence of certain evidences on record including Form 'F'. In fact for the sale, there must be minimum two persons, one is seller another must be purchaser. Whenever the goods transferred from place of manufacturing to the stockyard, there is no change in ownership neither the said transaction can be termed as a sale nor in the said transactions there is any transfer of the ownership of the goods. Counsel for the petitioner has taken this Court to various provisions of the Acts and Rules about the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, Bihar Finance Act, 1981 and the Rules made thereunder. There are lot of rounds of litigations between these parties and several orders have been passed one after another. Now, the disputes are confined to the extent that even in absence of any evidence about the transactions by this petitioner within the erstwhile State of Bihar whether the respondent -State can presume it that they were the transactions covered by the words "Inter -State Sale". This presumption is not permissible in the eyes of law and, therefore, counsel for the petitioner fairly submitted that these transactions which have been stated herein above in paragraph no. 13 of the impugned order, even in absence of any evidence on record, at the highest, the State can presume it as intrastate sale, otherwise, the burden will be upon the State to prove movements of the goods from one State to another under Section 3 -A of the Central Sales Tax, 1956. Petitioner will be satisfied, if, the State is accepting the transactions stated in paragraph no. 13 of the impugned order as intra -state sale and the tax leviable will be at 4% of the sale price, whereas, the respondent -State has presumed those transactions as interstate sale and has levied and collected, in breach of several provisions of the Act, including Bihar Finance Act, 1981, and in breach of Central Sales Tax, 1956 and the Rules made thereunder at the rate of 8%. This amount of 8% of tax has also been realized by coercive methods and, therefore, if the State is accepting these contentions that the transactions stated in paragraph no. 13 of the impugned order as intra -state sale the remaining 4% of the amount may be ordered to be refunded to the petitioner or the said amount may be adjusted for future liability of the petitioner towards the Value Added Tax or Central Sales Tax or both.