Importer status for sales tax depends on contractual transaction facts, not freight payment or physical receipt alone.

For levy of special sales tax under the Bihar Sales Tax Act and the related notification, importer status depends on the true contractual and transactional position, not merely on physical receipt of goods or payment of freight. Where the orders were placed with the Patna branch, bills were raised by that branch, sales tax was charged on those sales, and there was no direct contractual privity with the Calcutta firm, the Patna branch was treated as the importing dealer. The purchaser at Dumka was therefore not the importer, and the levy could not be fastened on it on that basis.

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Issues: Whether the assessee was the importer of the vegetable products for the purpose of levy of special sales tax under the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 and the notification issued thereunder.

Analysis: The turnover related to goods despatched from Calcutta to Dumka, but the decisive facts were that the assessee placed orders with the Patna City branch of the same dealer, the bills were raised by the Patna branch, sales tax was charged on those sales, and there was no direct contractual privity between the Calcutta firm and the assessee. The Patna branch had itself applied for the import permit under section 42 of the Act read with rule 31 of the Bihar Sales Tax Rules, 1959, which supported the conclusion that the Patna branch, and not the Dumka purchaser, was the importing dealer. Mere payment of freight by the assessee did not alter the contractual incidence of import or make it the importer.

Conclusion: The assessee was not the importer in respect of the goods in question, and the levy could not be fastened on it on that basis; the reference was answered in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Tribunal's finding that the Dumka dealer was not the importer was upheld, and the tax liability was held to rest on the Patna branch dealer, not on the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: For levy under the special sales tax notification, the importer is the dealer who, on the true contractual and transactional facts, brings the goods into the State for sale; direct physical receipt of goods and payment of freight by the purchaser do not by themselves make the purchaser the importer.

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