Case Law Details
M/s. TVS Motor Company Ltd. Vs. State of Tamil Nadu and Others (Supreme Court of India)
A reading of Section 8(1) of the CST Act would show that classification is contained in the Central Act itself which treats sale to a registered dealer outside the State in one category and sale to an unregistered dealer outside the State in a different category. This provision contained in Section 8(1) of the CST Act never underwent any change. Therefore, those sales which were made to unregistered dealers outside the State were constituted a different class and, thus, provisions contained in Section 19(5) (c) to deny ITC on such sales was perfectly justified based on reasonable classification.
Wherever the State Government buys, sells, supplies or distribute goods, it shall be deemed to be the dealer for the purposes of TNVAT Act. At the same time, TNVAT Act does not require registration by the State Government inasmuch as Section 38 which deals with registration of dealers explicitly provides, under sub-section (8) thereof, that this provision shall not apply to any State Government or Central Government. A conjoint reading of the aforesaid two provisions would show that when a sale is made to the State of Karnataka, it is made to a dealer but that dealer is under no obligation to get itself registered under the TNVAT Act. Because of this exemption, no State Government does that and since it is not a registered dealer, it would not be in a position to issue any Form C. But for that, the genuineness of sales made to a State Government cannot be doubted. This situation puts those dealers who are making sales to the State Government in disadvantageous position, even when it is clear that there is no possibility of tax evasion as there cannot be any such apprehension in case of sales to the State Government. We may point out here that benefit of ITC is given whenever sale is made to a dealer outside State of Tamil Nadu and the said dealer is a registered dealer.
Having regard to the above, we are of the opinion that the provisions of Section 19(5)(c) are to be read down by construing that those dealers who are making sales exclusively to the other State Governments (i.e. outside the State of Tamil Nadu), the said States would be deemed as registered dealers for the purposes of availing benefits of ITC. Otherwise, in such a situation, it would be difficult to hold that test of reasonable classification is met in this
Result of the aforesaid discussion would be to uphold the judgement of the High Court with one rider, namely, that in those cases where a dealer makes sales exclusively to the other State Government(s), benefit of ITC would be allowed without insisting on the furnishing of Form ‘C’. However, in order to avail this benefit, a certificate from said the State Government to whom the supplies are made would be obtained by the dealer claiming ITC and submitted to the VAT authorities.
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