Administrative dictation cannot sustain reassessment, and computer parts fall within a scheduled exemption covering the defined goods.

Writ jurisdiction was held maintainable despite an alternative statutory remedy where reassessment was alleged to have been driven by administrative dictation rather than independent statutory satisfaction. The circular was treated as impermissibly constraining assessing officers, so the proposition notices and reassessment orders were invalidated. On the exemption issue, the schedule and exemption notifications were construed to include parts of computers and computer peripherals within the covered goods, so turnover tax and resale tax relief extended to those parts. The Commissioner was also treated as competent to withdraw an earlier clarification, and a withdrawn circular did not continue to bind the department for the impugned assessments.

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Issues: (i) Whether the writ petitions were barred by the existence of an alternative statutory remedy; (ii) whether the proposition notices and reassessment orders were vitiated as having been issued under the dictation of the Commissioner through the impugned circular; (iii) whether parts of computers and computer peripherals were exempted from turnover tax and resale tax under the exemption notifications issued under section 8-A of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957; (iv) whether the Commissioner had power to withdraw the earlier clarification by issuing the later circular; and (v) whether the earlier clarification bound the department until its withdrawal.

Issue (i): Whether the writ petitions were barred by the existence of an alternative statutory remedy.

Analysis: The existence of an appeal or other remedy does not by itself bar writ jurisdiction where the impugned action is alleged to be without jurisdiction, contrary to law, or the result of a constrained exercise of quasi-judicial power. The circular issued by the Commissioner required the authorities to proceed in a particular manner and warned that deviation would be viewed seriously. In that setting, the statutory remedies were not an effective answer, because the authorities tasked with assessing and reassessing were not left free to exercise independent judgment.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were maintainable and the objection based on alternative remedy was rejected.

Issue (ii): Whether the proposition notices and reassessment orders were vitiated as having been issued under the dictation of the Commissioner through the impugned circular.

Analysis: An assessment or reassessment under section 12-A must rest on the assessing authority's own satisfaction that escapement has occurred. The circular did not merely state a legal view; it directed the officers to reopen completed assessments and to proceed in pending matters, thereby interfering with the statutory discretion vested in the assessing authorities. The materials showed that the reassessment process was triggered by the Commissioner's instructions rather than by an independent application of mind.

Conclusion: The proposition notices and reassessment orders were invalid and liable to be quashed.

Issue (iii): Whether parts of computers and computer peripherals were exempted from turnover tax and resale tax under the exemption notifications issued under section 8-A of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957.

Analysis: The statutory entry in the Second Schedule described computers and peripherals in a manner that, by its structure and wording, included their parts within the defined goods. The phrases used in the schedule, read in context, treated the parts as part of the defined commercial category. The exemption notifications granted relief to computers, computer peripherals, computer consumables and computer cleaning kits falling under Serial No. 20 of Part C of the Second Schedule, and therefore incorporated the whole of that entry. The contemporaneous understanding of the assessing machinery and the earlier clarification also supported that construction.

Conclusion: Parts of computers and computer peripherals were exempted from turnover tax and resale tax.

Issue (iv): Whether the Commissioner had power to withdraw the earlier clarification by issuing the later circular.

Analysis: The authority empowered to issue a circular or clarification also has power to withdraw it. The statute and the general principles governing administrative instructions support that position. The later circular withdrawing the earlier clarification was therefore not ultra vires merely because it reversed the prior administrative view.

Conclusion: The Commissioner had power to withdraw the earlier clarification.

Issue (v): Whether the earlier clarification bound the department until its withdrawal.

Analysis: A departmental circular binds the department while it remains in force, but its binding force ceases once it is withdrawn. The earlier clarification existed only for a short period and had already been withdrawn when the disputed reassessment actions were taken. In any event, the statutory power to reopen escaped assessments could not be defeated by reliance on a withdrawn clarification.

Conclusion: The department was not bound by the withdrawn clarification for the impugned assessments.

Final Conclusion: The appellate court set aside the order of the single judge, held that the impugned notices, reassessment orders and circular could not stand, and declared that parts of computers and computer peripherals were not liable to turnover tax or resale tax under the impugned exemption regime because they were covered by the notifications.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption notification adopts the wording of a scheduled entry that defines goods to include their parts, the exemption extends to those parts; and quasi-judicial reassessment cannot be sustained when it is shown to have been compelled by administrative dictation rather than independent statutory satisfaction.

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