Concessional inter-State sales tax can be made conditional, and non-compliance with notification requirements defeats the lower rate.

Section 8(5) of the Central Sales Tax Act permits a State Government to grant concessional tax treatment for inter-State sales subject to conditions imposed in the notification. The notifications at issue validly required declarations within a prescribed time, because they attached conditions to a concession rather than taking away an existing statutory right. Failure to produce declarations within time for Goa sales, and failure to produce declarations at all for Pondicherry sales, meant the dealer did not satisfy the conditions for the lower rate. The higher-rate assessment was therefore sustained, and factual difficulty in obtaining compliance did not create a right to the concession without meeting the notification requirements.

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Issues: Whether notifications issued under section 8(5) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 could validly prescribe a time-limit and other conditions for obtaining concessional tax rate on inter-State sales, and whether failure to comply with those conditions entitled the assessee to avoid assessment at the higher rate.

Analysis: Section 8(5) empowers the State Government to grant concession in the public interest subject to such conditions as it thinks fit to impose. The notifications in question did not curtail any existing right under section 8(4); they extended a concession where the assessee otherwise could not obtain the benefit of the lower rate. The declarations required under the notifications were therefore conditions attached to the concession itself. Since the assessee did not produce declarations within the prescribed time in the case of Goa sales and did not produce declarations at all in the case of Pondicherry sales, it failed to satisfy the conditions for the concessional rate. The inability to comply, arising from the factual situation in the territories concerned, did not create any legal right to claim the concession without compliance.

Conclusion: The notifications were valid, the assessee was bound by their conditions, and the assessment at the higher rate was upheld against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A concession granted under section 8(5) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 may lawfully be made subject to conditions prescribed in the notification, and non-compliance with those conditions disentitles the dealer from claiming the concessional rate.

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