Taxable turnover includes regular sale of surplus construction materials when connected to the contractor's business and profit motive.

Surplus materials left after construction, including cement bags, casurina poles and iron scrap, were taxable because their regular sale had a direct and reasonable connection with the contractor's construction business. The broad definitions of "sale" and "dealer" covered transactions that formed a subsidiary business linked to the main commercial activity and undertaken with a profit motive. The sales were treated as more than a mere realisation of capital assets, so they were includible in taxable turnover and liable to assessment. The Tribunal's exclusion of those sales was therefore set aside.

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Issues: Whether the sale of surplus materials such as cement bags, casurina poles and iron scrap by a works contractor was a sale in the course of business and therefore includible in taxable turnover.

Analysis: The assessee carried on the business of construction of buildings and bridges and purchased materials for that business. The surplus materials left after construction were regularly sold, and those sales had a direct and reasonable connection with the normal business activity of the assessee. The definition of "sale" and "dealer" under the Act was wide enough to cover such transactions, and the test was whether the sale was connected with the nature of the business carried on by the dealer and whether the business activity was intended to be undertaken with profit motive. On the facts, the sales were a subsidiary business connected with the main business, unlike a mere realization of capital assets.

Conclusion: The disputed sales were rightly includible in the taxable turnover and were liable to assessment.

Final Conclusion: The revisions succeeded, and the exclusion granted by the Tribunal was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: A sale by a dealer is taxable when it has a reasonable connection with the nature of the business carried on and forms part of a business activity intended to be pursued with profit motive, even if the particular goods are not the dealer's principal stock-in-trade.

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