Liquor sales tax coverage upheld where licence fee was not sales tax, dealers status applied, and beer fell within liquor entry.

An additional licence fee under the excise rules was treated as a licence-related impost, not as sales tax, so it did not amount to double taxation. A renewable or time-bound liquor licence did not prevent the petitioners from carrying on business, and they were therefore dealers under the sales tax law. Beer fell within the taxable entry for liquor because the statutory definition of liquor included beer, so it was not excluded from the schedule merely for lack of separate naming. The challenge was rejected and the levy upheld.

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Issues: (i) whether the additional licence fee payable under the excise rules could be treated as sales tax so as to make the impugned levy a case of double taxation; (ii) whether the petitioners' licensed liquor trade lacked the continuity required to make them dealers under the sales tax law; and (iii) whether beer fell within the taxable category of liquor under the relevant schedule.

Issue (i): whether the additional licence fee payable under the excise rules could be treated as sales tax so as to make the impugned levy a case of double taxation.

Analysis: The additional fee under the excise rules was a licence-related impost and could not be equated with a sales tax levied under the taxing statute. The two levies operated in different fields, and the mere fact that both were connected with liquor sales did not make the impugned tax a second tax on the same subject in the legal sense.

Conclusion: The challenge based on double taxation failed and was against the petitioners.

Issue (ii): whether the petitioners' licensed liquor trade lacked the continuity required to make them dealers under the sales tax law.

Analysis: The statutory definition of dealer turned on a person carrying on the business of selling goods in West Bengal. The existence of a renewable or time-bound licence did not negate the carrying on of business. No element of permanency or continuity, beyond the carrying on of the business itself, was required by the definition.

Conclusion: The petitioners were dealers within the meaning of the sales tax law and this contention failed against them.

Issue (iii): whether beer fell within the taxable category of liquor under the relevant schedule.

Analysis: The scheduled entry used the term liquor, and the excise definition of liquor expressly included beer. On that construction, beer was not excluded from the tax net merely because it was not separately named in the schedule.

Conclusion: Beer was held taxable under the relevant entry and this contention was against the petitioners.

Final Conclusion: The statutory challenge was rejected in full, the levy was upheld, and the petitioners remained liable to pay sales tax on the liquors covered by the schedule.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a taxing entry uses a genus term that includes a commodity by statutory definition, the commodity is taxable even if not separately named, and a licence-restricted business still amounts to carrying on business for dealer status under the sales tax law.

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