TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1997 (9) TMI 490
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.... order of the West Bengal Taxation Tribunal. 2.. The assessment year with which we are concerned is the assessment year 1974-75. The assessee, the appellant, brewed and sold beer in beer bottles. For the beer it gave to its purchasers one invoice and another for "the deposit on bottles". On record are two such corresponding invoices. On the invoice which relates to "deposit on bottles" there is another item, of "truck charge". It was the case of the assessee that the rate per bottle of the deposit was adjusted so as to cover the cost of the bottles that were purchased by it. Up to 1st March, 1974, the rate was Rs. 4.80 per dozen bottles but, due to the increase in their cost, the rate was raised to Rs. 9 per dozen bottles with effect ....
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....turn of the empty bottles. They found that the transaction in respect of the beer bottles was not one of a bailment as contended by the assessee but one of sale. 4. Learned counsel for the appellant relied upon Benjamin's Sale of Goods (Third Edition) where it is stated: "It is a question of construction whether sacks, barrels, bottles and similar containers in which goods are sold are themselves the subject of a sale or are merely bailed to the buyer, remaining at all times the property of the seller or the original manufacturer. It is not decisive of the issue that a charge is made for the non-return of the container, nor will the payment of such a charge necessarily transfer the ownership of the container to the person who pays i....
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....umers and return them to the appellant. (4) The empty bottles and crates were to be taken back by the trucks of the appellant, the drivers of which were authorised to issue a receipt for the empties against which the appellant would issue credit notes. At the time of the booking of the next consignment, the customers would get advantage of the credit notes." This arrangement suggested to this Court "a continuous process by which the appellant will sell beer to its customers in bottles and crates and collect the sale price of beer and also deposits for the crates and the bottles. The customers, in their turn, will sell beer to the consumers and apart from the price of beer, will recover forty paise per bottle as deposit to ensur....
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....only accepted that a transaction of sale may consist of a sale of the product and a separate sale of the container housing the product with respective sale considerations for the product and the container separately; or it may consist of a sale of the product and a sale of the container but both sales being conceived of as integrated components of a single sale transaction; or, what may yet be a third case, it may consist of a sale of the product with the transfer of the container without any sale consideration therefor. The question in every case will be a question of fact as to what are the nature and ingredients of the sale. It is not right in law to pick on one ingredient only to the exclusion of the others and deduce from it the charac....
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....f the transaction has been repeatedly emphasised by this Court. In Hyderabad Deccan Cigarette Factory v. State of Andhra Pradesh [1966] 17 STC 624 this Court said: 'It is not possible to state as a proposition of law that whenever particular goods were sold in a container the parties did not intend to sell and buy the container also. Many cases may be visualized where the container is comparatively of high value and sometimes even higher than that contained in it. Scent or whisky may be sold in costly containers. Even cigarettes may be sold in silver or gold caskets. It may be that in such cases the agreement to pay an extra price for the container may be more readily implied. In the present case, if we may say so with respect, all the a....
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....appear to bear out the assessee's case that the empties were returnable at any time. This must also be taken into account that the customers were required to deposit for the beer bottles a rate which was exactly equal to the cost of the bottles; this would suggest the sale thereof more strongly than the intention to get them back upon bailment. It seems to us upon these facts and circumstances that there was really a sale of the bottles to the customers, the assessee buying back the empties from some customers. It is, therefore, that the assessee could show a refund of Rs. 11,62,974 out of the total amount of deposits, namely, Rs. 30,57,143. Had there been a bailment, which necessarily pre-supposes that the bailee was aware of the terms the....