Product-based maize exemption and jurisdictional writ relief applied where end use could not defeat statutory exemption.

A writ challenge to an assessment was maintainable despite an appellate remedy because the assessing authority acted on a jurisdictional error and contrary to the statute and departmental circulars. Maize was held to be exempt under the relevant schedule on a product-based basis, and the exemption could not be denied merely because the purchaser used it as poultry feed or waste. The assessment order was therefore set aside and relief granted against the disallowance of exemption.

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Issues: (i) whether the writ petition against the assessment order was maintainable despite the availability of an appellate remedy, when the assessment was assailed as a jurisdictional error; (ii) whether exemption for maize under the relevant schedule depended on the end use of the commodity by the purchaser.

Issue (i): whether the writ petition against the assessment order was maintainable despite the availability of an appellate remedy, when the assessment was assailed as a jurisdictional error.

Analysis: Though an alternative statutory appeal was available, the rule of relegating the party to that remedy is not absolute. Writ jurisdiction can still be invoked where the impugned action is vitiated by lack of jurisdiction or violation of natural justice. The challenge here was that the assessing authority proceeded on a basis not supported by the statute or the departmental circulars.

Conclusion: The writ court could interfere because the assessment involved a jurisdictional error.

Issue (ii): whether exemption for maize under the relevant schedule depended on the end use of the commodity by the purchaser.

Analysis: Maize was specifically covered by the exemption entry, and the departmental circulars also treated maize as exempt. Nothing in the Act or in the circulars made the exemption conditional upon the purchaser's use of the commodity. The statutory exemption was attached to the product itself and not to the user or the use to which the goods were put. The assessing authority therefore could not deny exemption merely because the buyer used the maize as poultry feed or waste.

Conclusion: The exemption was product-based and not user-based, and the disallowance was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The assessment order was set aside and the assessee obtained relief against the disallowance of exemption on maize.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a commodity is expressly exempted by the tariff entry, the exemption cannot be denied on the ground of the purchaser's end use unless the statute or valid circulars make such use a condition of exemption; an assessment made on that erroneous basis is amenable to writ interference as a jurisdictional error.

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