Commission agent not liable as dealer where auction sales were conducted without authority to transfer title.

A turmeric commission agent that merely stored goods, conducted auctions in the growers' presence, collected price and deducted charges, without authority to fix price or transfer title, was not a dealer under the sales tax law. The court held that such facilitative activity did not amount to carrying on business of buying or selling on behalf of the principals, and prior tax payment created no liability against the statute. It further held that writ review was available because dealer status was a jurisdictional fact essential to assessment, so the existence of an appellate remedy did not bar certiorari where the assessing authority ignored binding precedent.

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Issues: (i) Whether a turmeric commission agent conducting auction sales in the presence of the agriculturist and without authority to sell on its own account is a dealer liable to sales tax under the Act. (ii) Whether the availability of an alternative remedy barred the writ petition where the levy depended on the existence of a jurisdictional fact.

Issue (i): Whether a turmeric commission agent conducting auction sales in the presence of the agriculturist and without authority to sell on its own account is a dealer liable to sales tax under the Act.

Analysis: The definition of dealer under the Act covers persons carrying on business of buying, selling, supplying or distributing goods, including a commission agent who carries on such business on behalf of a principal. On the facts found, the agriculturists stored turmeric with the petitioner, attended the auction, accepted the highest bid themselves, and completed the sale in their own right. The petitioner had no authority to determine the price or transfer the property in the goods, but only facilitated storage, auction, delivery, collection of price, and deduction of charges. In the absence of dominion coupled with authority to sell, the petitioner did not carry on the business of buying or selling goods on behalf of the growers. Prior payment of tax in earlier years did not create liability, because there can be no estoppel against a statute.

Conclusion: The petitioner was not a dealer within the meaning of section 2(g) of the Act and was not liable to sales tax.

Issue (ii): Whether the availability of an alternative remedy barred the writ petition where the levy depended on the existence of a jurisdictional fact.

Analysis: Liability to tax arose only if the petitioner was a dealer, and that status was a jurisdictional fact forming the condition precedent to assessment. The existence or non-existence of such a jurisdictional fact was open to scrutiny in certiorari proceedings. The binding earlier decision of the High Court on the same kind of transaction was ignored by the assessing authority, making writ intervention appropriate. The mere availability of an appeal under the Act did not operate as an absolute bar.

Conclusion: The writ petition was maintainable and the objection based on alternative remedy failed.

Final Conclusion: The assessment could not stand because the petitioner's auction-based commission agency activity did not amount to taxable dealer activity, and the writ court was entitled to intervene on the jurisdictional issue.

Ratio Decidendi: A commission agent is not a dealer for sales tax purposes unless it has authority to sell or otherwise transfer property in the goods on behalf of the principal; and liability founded on a jurisdictional fact may be examined in writ proceedings notwithstanding an alternative statutory remedy.

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