1980 (7) TMI 249

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....he respondent in the appeal being referred to as the writ petitioner. 2.. The writ petitioner is a dealer in Calicut carrying on business in the sale of arms, ammunition and general goods. For the assessment year 1974-75 the petitioner was assessed to sales tax on a total turnover of Rs. 1,49,045.81 as per the order of assessment evidenced by exhibit P1 dated 21st October, 1975. The petitioner paid the entire tax due on the said order. On 13th December, 1976, the petitioner was served with a notice exhibit P2 issued by the Sales Tax Officer (appellant) stating that two items of general goods, viz., sulphur and saltpetre, were wrongly assessed at 4 per cent instead of 15 per cent and that hence it was proposed to revise the original assessm....

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....'s contention that sulphur and saltpetre will not fall within the scope of entry No. 18 of the First Schedule because they cannot be regarded as "ammunitions" either in the popular sense of the said expression or in the commercial sense of that term. The objection taken by the respondent in the original petition that the petitioner was not entitled to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under article 226 of the Constitution without exhausting the statutory remedies available to him was overruled by the learned single Judge by pointing out that in the instant case no useful purpose would have been served by the petitioner by pursuing his objections before the Sales Tax Officer or even before the first appellate officer since ....

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....rendered totally ineffective on account of the direction issued by the State Government which is binding on the assessing authority as well as the appellate authority that sulphur and saltpetre are commodities which fall within the scope of entry No. 18 of the First Schedule to the Act and are liable to be subjected to tax at the rate mentioned therein. In such circumstances we consider, with respect, that the learned Judge was perfectly justified in overruling the preliminary objection raised by the learned Government Pleader on behalf of the Sales Tax Officer. 6.. That leaves us with the question as to whether sulphur and saltpetre will fall within the scope of entry No. 18 of the First Schedule to the Act. We have already extracted the ....