TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1972 (9) TMI 117
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....tees and who were registered with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. The list of allottees with the quantity allotted to each of them was given in annexure 1 to the said agreement. The petitioner, in accordance with the terms of the agreement, had to notify each allottee his allocation from time to time and require him to indicate the quality of copra, the pattern of delivery and his preference, if any, as to the foreign supplier. The petitioner has to import copra from time to time in accordance with the agreement entered into with the State Trading Corporation and distribute it to the allottees as per their requirements. The petitioner was allowed to take half a per cent of the c.i.f. value of the goods for meetin....
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....ts, as the case may be. The purchase order contains the price and the other terms such as the time and place of delivery, etc., and it is signed by the petitioner, allottee and the Colombo seller. In pursuance of the said purchase order the goods are shipped by the Colombo seller and the necessary insurance is effected by the allottees to cover 110 per cent value of the goods shipped. The Ceylon seller however prepares the documentary bills in the name of the petitioner which had instructed its bankers, the Canara Bank Ltd., to honour the bills drawn on it by the Colombo seller and take delivery of the documents. The petitioner in its turn draws a bill of exchange as well as invoice on the allottee and asks its bankers to collect the amount....
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....s Tax Appellate Tribunal. Though it upheld the assessment, it reduced the penalty from Rs. 23,772.08 to Rs. 1,000. Before us, the learned counsel for the petitioner challenges the view taken by the Tribunal as regards the taxability of the transactions in question. On behalf of the petitioner it is contended that in importing copra from Ceylon and in supplying the same to the various allottees it has neither acted as a dealer nor effected any sale and that, in any event, even if the import and the distribution are taken to be sales, such sales will be in the course of import not liable to be taxed under the Madras General Sales Tax Act. The learned counsel has taken us through the various terms of the two agreements, one entered i....
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....cates that the purchase was directly by the allottee from the foreign seller through the petitioner as an intermediary for the purpose of import. As a matter of fact, the petitioner had no import licence in its name and it had been merely authorised by the corporation to import copra on the basis of the bulk licence issued in its name by the Government of India on behalf of the named allottees. Therefore, we are of the view that the Tribunal is not right in holding that there has been a sale by the foreign seller to the petitioner and a further sale by the petitioner to the allottees. On the facts, there is only one sale by the foreign seller to the allottees though the goods are routed through the petitioner which has merely been authorise....
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....titioner-society and the allottee preceded the import. In Khosla & Co. (P.) Ltd. v. Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes[1966] 17 S.T.C. 473 (S.C.). , the Supreme Court expressed the view that before a sale could be said to have occasioned the import it was not necessary that the sale should have preceded the import and that it is sufficient if the movement of the goods from the foreign territory was incidental to, or in pursuance of, the contract between the actual importer and the local purchaser and if there was no possibility of the goods being diverted by the importer for any other purpose. It is common ground that the petitioner-society placed orders with the foreign seller only after it entered into an agreement with the various a....