1974 (1) TMI 104

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....ale and liable to sales tax under the Orissa Sales Tax Act?" 2.. These six references relate to the quarters ending 31st December, 1964, to 31st March, 1966. The assessee is a photographer who takes photographs of customers, develops the films, prints the same and supplies printed copies of the photographs to the customers. He also sells films. 3.. There is no dispute regarding liability of sales tax in respect of sale of films. But there is dispute over the exigibility of sales tax over the turnover relating to sale of printed copies of photographs of customers. Before the Sales Tax Tribunal, three decisions were cited-one by the assessee being the case of B.C. Kame v. Assistant Sales Tax Officer[1971] 28 S.T.C. 1. of the Madhya Prad....

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....re, he was not bargaining merely for the special skill which the photographer had to produce a negative, but he was really asking for supply from that negative as many copies of the finished positives as the customer required and, therefore, held that the transaction was exigible to sales tax. The Gujarat High Court in the case of Chelaram Hasomal v. State of Gujarat[1965] 16 S.T.C. 1021. approved the principle indicated in the cases reported in D. Masanda & Co. v. Commissioner of Sales Tax [1957] 8 S.T.C. 370. and M. Ghosh v. State of Bihar[1961] 12 S.T.C. 154.Similarly, the Madras High Court in a later case, Eastern Photo Studio v. State of Madras[1970] 25 S.T.C. 376., approved the principles laid down in the aforesaid Patna decision. ....

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.... photographs. In a customer asking for photographs from the photographer, questions like the price of the negative, the expenses of developing, which again involve price of various components necessary for the process, expenses of the printing paper and other break-ups are not separately taken into account. Ordinarily, the photographer quotes a rate for the prints and the customer also is interested to find out how much he has to pay for the finished goods, namely, the photographs. There is no material on record in this case about the details of the transactions. Therefore, it is appropriate to assume that the assessee carried on his transactions in the normal way which would be somewhat akin to the process indicated by us. The assessee had....