Writ jurisdiction and inter-State sales tax relief upheld where the demand was challenged as jurisdictionally defective.

A writ petition was held maintainable despite an alternate statutory appeal because the challenge went to the very authority to issue the demand and notice, making the impugned action vulnerable on jurisdictional grounds. On the sales tax issue, motor vehicle sales claimed as inter-State transactions were protected by the concessional notification under section 8(5)(b) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956; later registration in the State did not, by itself, convert them into intra-State sales. The State had to prove that the vehicles had not moved pursuant to the contracts of sale, and that burden was not discharged. The single judge's interference was upheld.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the writ petition was maintainable despite the availability of an appellate remedy under the sales tax law. (ii) Whether the impugned communications and show-cause notice could validly treat the respondent's sales of motor vehicles as intra-State sales and deny the benefit of the concessional inter-State sales tax notification.

Issue (i): Whether the writ petition was maintainable despite the availability of an appellate remedy under the sales tax law.

Analysis: The disputed communications and the notice were assailed as lacking legal authority and as proceeding on assumptions that went to the root of jurisdiction. In such a situation, the existence of an alternate statutory appeal did not by itself bar exercise of writ jurisdiction, because the challenge was directed against the very authority to raise the demand and against a notice said to be without jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The writ petition was maintainable notwithstanding the alternative remedy.

Issue (ii): Whether the impugned communications and show-cause notice could validly treat the respondent's sales of motor vehicles as intra-State sales and deny the benefit of the concessional inter-State sales tax notification.

Analysis: The concessional rate under the notification issued under section 8(5)(b) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 governed inter-State sales of motor vehicles. The challenge to the notice rested on the position that the sales were completed in the course of inter-State trade and commerce and that the subsequent registration of vehicles in the State did not, by itself, convert such transactions into intra-State sales. The burden lay on the State to show that the vehicles had not moved out of the State in pursuance of the contracts of sale, and the mere fact of later registration within the State was insufficient to sustain the contrary inference.

Conclusion: The impugned directions and notice could not be sustained on the footing that the transactions were intra-State sales.

Final Conclusion: The interference granted by the learned single judge was upheld and the State's challenge failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A writ petition may be entertained despite an alternative statutory remedy where the impugned action is alleged to be without jurisdiction, and a sale remains an inter-State sale if movement of goods is integrally connected with the contract, the burden being on the State to prove otherwise.

---