Constitutional sales tax enlargement still needs a State deeming fiction before club supplies to members become taxable sales.

The Forty-sixth Amendment expanded State taxing power by inserting Article 366(29A), including supplies by unincorporated associations to members within the constitutional concept of a sale. That enlargement did not, however, automatically create liability under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941; the State statute still needed an express deeming provision bringing the transaction within its definition of sale. On the text of that Act, no such fiction was found for the relevant supply by an unincorporated club to its members, so the club was not treated as a dealer for those transactions and the assessment notices were quashed.

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Issues: Whether an unincorporated club supplying goods to its members was a dealer liable to sales tax under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, after the Forty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution when the State Act had not been correspondingly amended to deem such supply a sale.

Analysis: The Forty-sixth Amendment enlarged the constitutional competence of the States by inserting Article 366(29A), including supplies by unincorporated associations to members within the expression tax on the sale or purchase of goods. The amendment validated laws already enacted within that field but did not by itself rewrite the State statute or create a taxable sale where the State Legislature had not introduced the necessary legal fiction. Liability depended on the State Act containing an appropriate deeming provision bringing the transaction within the definition of sale. On the text of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, the necessary fiction for taxing an unincorporated club's supply to members was not found to have been enacted for the relevant transaction.

Conclusion: The club was not a dealer in respect of the impugned transactions and the notices of assessment were liable to be quashed.

Final Conclusion: The application was allowed and the assessment notices were set aside, with no order as to costs.

Ratio Decidendi: Constitutional enlargement of taxing competence does not itself create a tax levy unless the State statute is correspondingly amended to deem the relevant supply a sale.

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