Case Law Details
Commercial Taxes Officer Vs Bhagat Singh (Supreme Court)
In the case of a Casual Trader, the time limit for assessment is one year from the date of making the report, and if no report is made, within two years from the date of the transaction. The date of transaction in this case is 26.12.2009. The question is whether assessment was barred upon expiry of two years from the date of transaction, and/or in other words after 25/26.12.2011.
In this Special Leave Petition, the main contention of the Petitioner is that a single transaction of purchase of a motor vehicle does not bring a person within the definition of “Casual Trader”. “Casual Trader” envisages occasional transactions of business involving buying and selling of goods. The plurality of transactions is a condition precedent for treating a trader as a “Casual Trader”. It is contended that there was only a single transaction in this case. The Respondent could not, therefore, be held a “Casual Trader.
The Appellate Authority, the Rajasthan Tax Board and the High Court have concurred in arriving at the finding that the assessment of the Respondent was barred by limitation as the Respondent was a “Casual Trader”. A perusal of the definition of “Casual Trader” makes it amply clear that a person with occasional transactions of buying/selling are to be treated as casual traders, for whom a shorter time limit for assessment has been imposed under Section 10B(iii) read with Section 10A of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act 1954. The Legislature could not, possibly, have intended that a person making 2 or 3 transactions should be treated as a “Casual Trader”, but a person making only one transaction should be treated at par with regular traders.
It is well settled that in construing a statutory provision, words in the singular are to include the plural and vice versa, unless repugnant to the context in which the expression has been used, as provided in Section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 and provisions identical thereto in State enactments pertaining to General Clauses.
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