Case Law Details
Vellanki Frame Works Vs Commercial Tax Officer (Supreme Court)
Supreme Court held that, we are clearly of the view that the claimed exemption under Section 5(2) of the CST Act has rightly been denied to the appellant and the High Court has been justified in dismissing the writ petitions filed by the appellant. The High Court has yet been considerate and gave time to the appellant to submit C-Forms for availing the benefit of concessional rate of tax. No case for interference is made out.
Preliminary and brief outline
1. These appeals by special leave are directed against the common judgment and order dated 18.12.2014 in Writ Petition Nos. 2552 of 2013 and 6258 of 2013 whereby, the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh1 upheld the assessment orders dated 20.01.2010 and 18.05.2010 passed by the Commercial Tax Officer, Chinawaltair Circle2 and held that the transactions in question were not the sales in the course of import but had been inter-State sales, liable to Central Sales Tax; and denied the exemption claimed under Section 5(2) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 19563 while granting time to the appellant to produce the prescribed C-Forms to the assessing authority for availing the benefit of concessional rate of tax.
2. We may usefully observe at the outset that, in all, seven transactions of similar nature form the subject matter of these appeals; one relating to the assessment for the year 2005-06 and others relating to the assessment for the year 2006-07. The common salient features of all these transactions had been that they were for supply of timber from a foreign country and were allegedly executed in a similar fashion thus: The supplier (party number 1) sold the goods in question to the first buyer (party number 2) and delivered them at the port of shipment. Thereafter, while the goods were in transit on high seas, party number 2 transferred the goods to the appellant (who was invariably party number 3 in these transactions) by endorsing the bill of lading in favour of the appellant. Further to this and while the goods were on high seas, the appellant allegedly transferred them to the end-buyer (party number 4) by endorsing the bill of lading in favour of the end-buyer.
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