TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1960 (2) TMI 42
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....ers and ghanawallas having more than one ghana, precludes the Government from levying tax on such oil. The petitioner, Messrs. Venkateswara Oil Mills, Walker Town, Secunderabad, which deals in groundnuts and groundnut oil, was assessed to sales tax on its total turnover in the year 1953-54. Rebate was claimed by him in regard to oil which was manufactured out of groundnuts purchased by him and on which sales tax was paid at the purchase point, on the ground that such turnover was not eligible to tax. This turnover amounted to Rs. 2,21,010-8-6. The assessing authority rejected this claim, presumably, on the ground that there is no provision in the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act (XIV of 1950) under which such relief could be claimed. Aggriev....
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....lt that he dismissed the appeal. The further appeal to the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal also proved unsuccessful. Before the Tribunal, it was urged that, acting on that opinion, the assessee refrained from collecting the tax from the consumers and that, therefore, the Department was estopped from enforcing the tax liability of the assessee. This submission was rejected by the Tribunal in the view that the Deputy Commissioner acted without authority in directing such exemption and consequently there was no estoppel against the provisions of the statute. It is to revise this order of the Tribunal that the present revision has been filed. We are now called upon to decide as to the effect of this letter upon the right of the Department to co....
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....Government could defeat the very object of a legislation, passed by the State Legislature in exercise of the authority derived under item 54 of List II in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. This legislative measure was enacted with the object of providing additional source of revenue to the State. That being so, a subordinate department cannot do anything which will result in detriment to public treasury. The subordinate officials of Government cannot release a subject from an obligation to pay such a tax. The statue imposes a duty of a positive kind on a dealer to pay tax on his turnover. He cannot escape liability to pay that tax by setting up a release from that obligation by an officer of Government as the order having that effec....
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....ts subsequently claimed had been rendered and claimed by the appellants earlier. The plea of estoppel was disallowed by the Privy Council. After reviewing elaborately the case law on the subject, their Lordships inter alia observed as follows: ".......where as here the statute imposes a duty of a positive kind, not avoidable by the performance of any formality, for the doing of the very act which the plaintiff seeks to do, it is not open to the defendant to set up an estoppel to prevent it. This conclusion must follow from the circumstances that an estoppel is only a rule of evidence which under certain special circumstances can be invoked by a party to an action; it cannot therefore avail in such a case to release the plaintiff from an ....
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....wered in the affirmative. The observations of Lord Atkin in In re A Bankruptcy Notice[1924] 2 Ch. 76 at 97. are to a like effect. He remarked: "Whatever the principle may be (referring to a contention as regards approbation and reprobation), it appears to me that it does not apply to this case, for it seems to me well established that it is impossible in law for a person to allege any kind of principle which precludes him from alleging the invalidity of that which the statute has, on grounds of general public policy, enacted shall be invalid." Following the Privy Council ruling in Maritime Electric Co. v. DairiesA.I.R. 1937 P.C. 114., a Bench of the Calcutta High Court in Hindustan Motors Ltd. v. Union of IndiaA.I.R. 1954 Cal. 151., held....