1996 (7) TMI 482

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....339 of 1992) and the assessment year 1979-80 (in Civil Appeal No. 2672 of 1992) on the basis that there was a sale by it of the photocopied or xeroxed document to the customer. The question that we are concerned with, therefore, is whether the making of photostat copies with the use of a xerox or other machine and delivering the copies so taken to the customer on receipt of payment amounts to a sale of goods exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959. Section 2(n) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, read as under at the relevant time: " 'Sale' with all its grammatical variations and cognate expressions means every transfer of the property in goods by one person to another in the course of business for cas....

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.... 248, wherein it was held: ".............Mere passing of property in an article or commodity during the course of performance of the transaction in question does not render the transaction to be transaction of sale. Even in a contract purely of work or service, it is possible that articles may have to be used by the person executing the work, and property in such articles or materials may pass to the other party. That would not necessarily convert the contract into one of sale of those materials. In every case, the court would have to find out what was the primary object of the transaction and the intention of the parties while entering into it.........." As has been noticed, the High Court stated that no person went to the assessee for b....

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....t in Assistant Sales Tax Officer v. B.C. Kame [1977] 39 STC 237; [1977] 2 SCR 435. In Kame's case the respondent carried on the business of supplying photographs to those who got themselves photographed at his studios. It was held that he did not enter into a contract of sale. The judgment of the Karnataka High Court in Girija v. State of Karnataka [1984] 56 STC 297, was cited before the Division Bench that wrote the judgment and order under appeal [reported in [1991] 83 STC 420 (State of Tamil Nadu v. Everest Copiers)]. It was distinguished on the ground that it "proceeded upon an erroneous understanding of the nature of the transaction and apparently carried away by the corporeal rights over the contents or subject-matter of the copies w....