Separate classification of bone and bone meal upheld, allowing tax at different stages under the sales tax statute.

Bone and bone meal were treated as separate commercial commodities under the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, with the schedules classifying them differently. Purchase tax attached to the last purchase of bone under the Third Schedule, while bone meal remained independently taxable as a distinct item under the Second Schedule at the first-sale stage. The court held that the fact that bone meal is manufactured from bone does not merge the two into one taxable commodity, and the statutory classification was valid. The challenge to levy tax on both items therefore failed.

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Issues: Whether bone purchased by the assessee could be subjected to purchase tax under the Third Schedule to the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957 when bone meal made from that bone was also sold and taxed under the Second Schedule.

Analysis: The schedules separately treated "bones and horns" and "bone meal" as distinct commodities. Purchase tax under section 5(3)(b) attached to the last purchase of goods specified in the Third Schedule, while tax on bone meal under the Second Schedule operated as single-point tax at the first sale stage under section 5(3)(a). The Court held that the Legislature was competent to distinguish between the two commercial commodities, and the fact that bone meal was prepared from bone did not merge them into one taxable item.

Conclusion: The assessee was liable to purchase tax on bone and the sale turnover of bone meal was also independently taxable. The challenge failed.

Final Conclusion: The revision petition was rejected because bone and bone meal were treated as separate taxable commodities under the Act, permitting levy at different stages.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statute classifies different commercial commodities separately in different schedules, tax liability attaches according to that statutory classification even if one commodity is manufactured from the other.

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