Allahabad High Court: Saumitra Dayal Singh, J. dismissed a revision which was filed for revenue against the order passed by the Trade Tax Tribunal, Noida by which the Tribunal had allowed assessee’s appeal holding insulated glass as taxable unclassified commodity @ 10%.
The question of law raised in the instant revision was, “Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case the Trade Tax Tribunal was legally justified in holding that on the manufacture and sale of laminated, insulated and toughened glass the dealer was liable to tax @ 10% as glass and not @ 16% as all the goods made of glasses ?”
The Court after perusing the records clarified that the dispute has to remain confined to insulated/ toughened glass. The Court stated that considering the case of Hindustan Safety Glass Works v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, 1998 SCC OnLine All 1345 and relying on the decision of the Supreme Court in Atul Glass Industries (P) Ltd. v. CCE, (1986) 3 SCC 480, the single bench of this Court had made the following observations:
” 9. Now coming down to the present case, description as per entry 39 of the notification dated 20.5.1976 is of all goods and wares made of glass, not including plain glass-panes”. This means that all items of glass have not been included as part of “glass and glassware”. Plain glass-panes have been excluded from the scope of Entry 39 aforesaid. Glass screen manufactured by the assessee is more akin to glass-panes rather than glassware. The said item has been excluded from the scope of Item 39. Glass screen is manufactured out of glass sheets and it is a new item. As such, the same is excluded from the said Entry 39. Following the Supreme Court decision, I have no hesitation in holding that the aforesaid goods fall under unclassified item rather than in Item No. 39 of the notification. In any case, if it falls under Item 39, the same is by way of exclusion.”
Thus, glass screens were held to be covered under the term ‘plain glass-panes’ appearing in the exclusionary clause of the taxing entries.
The Court applied the case of Hindustan Safety Glass Works v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, 1998 SCC OnLine All 1345 and believed that the Tribunal had made enough discussion of manufacturing process of the insulated glass manufactured and sold by the assessee and on its use. Insulated glass is nothing but double-glazed dual sheet (DGDS). The revision was thus dismissed reiterating that 10% Value Added Tax (VAT) is payable on insulated glass.
[Commr. Commercial Tax v. S/S G.S.C. Toughened Glass, 2022 SCC OnLine All 513, decided on 14-07-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
A.C. Tripathi, Advocate, Counsel for the Revisionist;
Nishant Mishra ,Yashonidhi Shukla, Advocates, Counsel for the Opposite Party.
*Suchita Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.