Prescription-related receipts can form taxable turnover where they are treated as medicine sales rather than consultation fees.

Receipts linked to prescriptions in a partnership firm's medicine-selling business were treated as taxable turnover because sales tax applied only to consideration for sales of goods. The court noted that professional advice or medical skill, by itself, is not a sale of goods, but on the facts there was no production of the prescriptions and no evidence that the receipts were consultation fees. In the absence of contrary material, the authorities were entitled to treat the amounts as the price of medicines supplied on the prescriptions, and the receipts were properly included in taxable turnover under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953.

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Issues: Whether receipts from prescriptions, entered in the books of a partnership firm carrying on a medicine-selling business alongside a partner's medical practice, formed part of taxable turnover as sales of goods under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953.

Analysis: Liability to sales tax arose only in respect of the turnover of sales of goods. Goods, sale price, and turnover of sales were defined in the Act so as to fasten tax on consideration received for the sale of movable property. Professional advice or medical skill, by itself, could not amount to a sale of goods. On the facts, however, the prescriptions were not produced and there was no material to show that the receipts represented consultation charges, wholly or partly. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the authorities were entitled to proceed on the footing that the amounts represented the price of medicines supplied on the prescriptions, which was a sale of goods.

Conclusion: The receipts from the prescriptions were taxable in the hands of the applicants and were properly included in taxable turnover.

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