Saktimata Traders Vs State of Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh High Court)
Conclusion: Fees collected by the agricultural market committee for its services were not tax and was generally defined to be a charge for a special service rendered to individuals by some Governmental agency.
Held: Assessee were paying agricultural market committee tax in the State of Punjab and for the very same stock they were not liable to pay cess in the State of Andhra Pradesh, which amounted to double taxation. The Market Committee on the other hand argued they were not collecting any tax from assessee and they were only collecting fee under Section 12 of the AP (Agricultural Produce and Live Stock) Markets Act 1966, for providing services to assessee. Assessee contended that Basmati Rice was not notified as commodity in Schedule-II in Sl.No.2 under Section 3 of the Andhra Pradesh (Agricultural Produce and Live Stock) Markets Act 1966 (for short „the Act‟) and the Andhra Pradesh (Agricultural Produce and Live Stock) Market Rules, 1969 (for short „the Rules‟). The market fee should be paid on the commodities under Section 12(1), if it was notified under the Schedule-II, Basmati rice did not come under raw and boiled rice. Hence, prayed to set aside the impugned proceedings. It was held that on the plain language of sub-section(1) of Section 12, the market fee was leviable on both purchase by a rice miller from a producer and also on purchase or sale of rice by a miller to a trader or by a trader to a trader because there was service rendered by a market committee at each of the stages. It was trite that levy of tax was for the purposes of general revenue which when collected formed part of the public revenue of the State, that a fee was generally defined to be a charge for a special service rendered to individuals by some Governmental agency. Respondents were not collecting any tax, they were only collecting cess from assessee for providing services. Merely not specified/mentioned as Basumathi rice in the schedule is not a ground to allow these writ petitions. The petitioners are paying the fee from the past several years and for the first time they come up with a plea Basumathi rice was not specified in Schedule-II. As the petitioners are not able to establish the exemption provision, in the absence the benefit must go to the State and in the common parlance it has to understand the rice both raw and boiled includes Basumathi rice. Therefore, this Court found no reasons to allow these writ petitions.
