Uttaranchal High Court: A Division Judge Bench of K.M. Joseph and Sharad Kumar Sharma, JJ., had allowed a revision which was filed aggrieved by the order of the Trade Tax Tribunal.
The assessment was done under the U.P. Trade Tax Act, 1948 and the respondent was assessed to tax in respect of sale of imported cement, imported sheet tiles & steel and self-manufactured tiles. The Assessing Officer had also assessed respondent in regard to the sale of steel scrap, sale of discarded items and tender forms. In Appeal, the Appellate Authority had dismissed the Appeal. Thereafter, the respondent preferred Second Appeal No. 117 of 1999 before the Trade Tax Tribunal, which partly allowed the appeal filed by the respondent and had sustained the tax assessed in respect of steel scrap, old discarded items and tender forms. The assessment order in so far it relates to the tax levied in respect of the imported cement, sale of imported sheet tiles & steel and self-manufactured tiles was interfered with. Thus the instant revision was filed.
The issue to be dealt was whether the Commercial Tax Tribunal has erred in law in holding that supply of cement, steel and bricks etc. to the contractors by the Government Department, for which cost is deducted from the bills of the contractors, does not amount to sale? And was it not liable to tax?
The Court relied on the Supreme Court judgment in N.M. Goel & Co. v. Sales Tax Officer, (1989) 1 SCC 335, wherein the Court noted that the appellant was a building contractor and registered dealer under the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act. The C.P.W.D. invited tenders for construction of foodgrain godown. In the tender submitted by the appellant the prices of the material to be used for construction cost of iron, steel and cement were included. The P.W.D. agreed to supply from its stores iron, steel and cement for the construction work and to deduct the price of material so supplied and consumed from the construction from the final bill of the appellant. It was found that all materials supplied to the contractors under the clause remain absolute property of the Government and could not be removed on any account from the site of the work and was at all times open to inspection by the Engineer-in-charge. The clause in fact inter alia provided that the contractor was bound to procure and to supply the material from stores as from time to time required for use of work for the purpose of contract only, and value of the full quantity of the materials and stores so supplied was specified at a rate and got set off or deducted from any sum due or that became due thereafter to the contractor.
The Court keeping in view these observations held that Tribunal was in error in taking the view that no tax to be paid on the sale of imported cement, sheet piles & steel and sale of self-manufactured tiles. The Court also noticed that definition of sale under the U.P. Trade Tax Act under Section 2-h includes transfer of property in goods involved in the execution of a works contract. The Court allowed the revision restoring the order of the Assessing Officer.[Commr., Commercial Tax v. Executive Engineer, 2018 SCC OnLine Utt 193, decided on 21-02-2018]
Suchita Shukla, Editorial Assistant has put this story together