TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1976 (12) TMI 165
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.... RAY, C.J.-These six appeals are by special leave from the judgment dated 26th February, 1974, of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The principal question in these appeals is whether the appellants are the last purchasers of manganese ore within the State of Andhra Pradesh. The appellants contended before the sales tax authorities that their sales of manganese ore to the Mines and Minerals Trading Corporation, in short called the M.M.T.C., were complete within the State of Andhra Pradesh. The appellants, therefore, contended that they were not the last purchasers but the M.M.T.C. was the last purchaser within the State and, therefore, the M.M.T.C. was liable to pay the tax. The High Court came to the conclusion that the appellan....
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.... occasions such export or is effected by a transfer of documents of title to the goods after the goods have crossed the customs frontiers of India. This Court found that the contracts between the manganese merchants and the S.T.C. on the one hand and the contracts between the S.T.C. and their foreign buyers on the other were two separate and independent contracts of sale. The S.T.C. entered into direct contract with their foreign buyers. The S.T.C. alone agreed to sell the goods to their foreign buyers. The S.T.C. was the exporter of goods. There was no privity of contract between the manganese merchants and the foreign buyers from the S.T.C. The privity of contract was between the S.T.C. and the foreign buyers. The immediate cause of th....
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....or the State are these: Only one contract was referred to in the High Court. The case of the appellants has all along been that the sales tax appellate authorities considered only one contract. The High Court also considered only one contract. In the special leave petition the appellants assailed the assumption made by the High Court to the effect that all contracts between the appellants and the M.M.T.C. were similar. Counsel for the State put in the forefront the contention that the M.M.T.C. could not be the last purchaser of goods within the State of Andhra Pradesh because property in the goods passed from the appellants to the M.M.T.C. on board the ship. In aid of that contention reliance was placed on the f.o.b. character of the con....
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....s. The taking of the goods from the merchants' place to the ship is completely separate from the transit pursuant to the export sale: see Serajuddin's case [1975] 36 S.T.C. 136 (S.C.); [1975] Supp. S.C.R. 169. In string contracts or chain contracts delivery is made by the original seller and eo instanti it is delivered in implement under each separate contract in the chain. In chain or string contracts starting between the mills or mines or factories and their immediate buyer and ending with the ultimate buyer through several intermediaries not only does the mill give and its immediate buyer take actual delivery but eo instanti each middleman gives and takes actual delivery. This process of delivery of possession goes all along the....
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....ch exports the goods under a separate contract with the foreign buyer to the latter will not make the two contracts either integrated or the contract between the merchant and the S.T.C. an f.o.b. contract. There cannot be two last purchasers in the sale of the same goods within the same State. Similarly, there cannot be two exporters in respect of the same goods. After the decision of the Constitution Bench in Serajuddin's case [1975] 36 S.T.C. 136 at 149-150 (S.C.); [1975] Supp. S.C.R. 169 at 184-185., the decision in National Tractors, Hubli v. Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Bangalore[1971] 27 S.T.C. 271 (S.C.); [1971] 3 S.C.C. 143., is no longer good law. In National Tractors case(1), which was a three Judge Bench decision, reli....