2000 (12) TMI 276

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....on 'Mritasanjibani' manufactured by the respondent was assessed to sales-tax under the Assam Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1956 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') under Item 67 of the Schedule to the Act by the assessing authorities. The challenge to the said assessment order being dismissed by the appellate authority, the respondents filed 3 writ petitions before a Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court which, while allowing the said writ petitions, declared the said Item 67 of the Schedule to the Act as violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. The State of Assam is in appeal before us, challenging the said judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court made in Civil Rule Nos. 368, 369 of 1978 and 310 of 1982 dated 11-4-1990. 2.&....

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....y (supra) does not apply to the facts of the case in hand, hence the High Court has erred in placing reliance on the said judgment. Per contra, on behalf of the respondents, it is contended that the judgment of this Court in Ayurveda Pharmacy (supra) applies on all fours to the facts of this case. 5. There is no dispute that the Legislature has a wide discretion in selecting the persons or objects it wants to tax and that a Statute cannot be challenged on the ground it levies tax on one class of articles and not on others. Bearing this well-settled principle in mind, we will now examine the provisions of the Assam Act as also the applicability of the judgment of this Court in Ayurveda Pharmacy (supra). For the said purpose, it is ne....

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..... As could be seen, this Item carves out an exception from Item 28 in regard to those medicinal preparations prepared under any pharmacopaeia; be it Allopathic, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic or Unani medicines if it contains more than 12% by volume, of alcohol. 8. An analysis of these two Items of the Schedule to the Act clearly shows that generally all Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and Unani medicines are exempt from the levy of tax. However, this exemption is not available to a specific class of medicinal preparation including Allopathic, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and Unani medicines if it contains 12% by volume of alcohol. 9. This class of spirituous medicinal preparation is to be taxed @ 20 paise in a rupee. The question, therefore,....

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.... medicinal preparations (emphasis supplied) they must be treated, for the purposes of the sales tax law, in like manner as medicinal preparations generally, including those containing a lower percentage of alcohol. In that case, it is to be noted that while all other patent or proprietary medicinal preparations belonging to different systems of medicines were taxed @ 7% only without any classification, Arishtams and Asavas prepared under the Ayurvedic system alone were made subject to 30% levy. The Court also noticed the fact that there were at relevant point of time over 130 Allopathic medicines containing alcohol which were potable as against only 3 Ayurvedic medicines out of which Arishtams and Asavas were alone subject to 30% tax. While....