1959 (12) TMI 32

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.... that there must have been a purchase of the scrap metal from the customers, and that the subsequent transaction was a sale of the brass and copper sheets and rings. The Department estimated the turnover of the second transaction at three times the labour charges, and on an estimated turnover of Rs. 2,61,356-11-6, the petitioner was assessed to sales tax. On appeal, the Commercial Tax Officer confirmed that assessment. The Tribunal confirmed that assessment when the assessee appealed to the Tribunal. The assessee thereupon applied to this Court under section 12-B of the Sales Tax Act to set aside the assessment on this item of his turnover which, it should be remembered, was ultimately sustained by the Tribunal. At one stage, learned counse....

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....e was such that it was not possible to correlate the supply of the new sheets and rings to the very scrap entrusted to the assessee by the customer who got the new sheets and rings in exchange. Apparently, the assessee collected scrap from a number of customers, had all that scrap melted, manufactured sheets and rings, and gave back the customers the exact weight, but in new sheets and rings. That the identity of the new sheets and rings could not be correlated to and established with the scrap supplied by the customer is not really germane in deciding the real question at issue,-was there a sale or purchase at any time, either when the assessee took over the scrap for the specific purpose of melting it and converting it into sheets and rin....

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....t of transfer of property. The assessee who had never any property could not transfer a non-existent right to the customer. The right was that of the customer all along; only, in lieu of the old scrap metal, he received the new metal, that is, purified metal, but cast into sheets and rings. The learned Advocate-General urged that this was the correct view to take of the transactions between the assessee and the customer, and we accept that contention as sound, in the circumstances established in this case and on the findings of the Tribunal. Since there was no element of sale at all when the sheets and rings were handed over to the customer, and what was collected from the customer was in substance and effect the charges for converting t....