TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1980 (10) TMI 196
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....e of inter-State trade in the sum Rs. 2,24,720.55. The hides and skins in question were originally purchased in this State in their raw state. The assessee tanned them before selling them as dressed hides and skins in the course of inter-State trade. There is no doubt that this sales turnover of Rs. 2,24,720.55 in dressed hides and skins is assessable under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956. In point of fact, however, no assessment has yet been made on the assessee on this turnover under the Central Sales Tax Act for the relevant year 1973-74. Consequently, no Central sales tax had been paid by the assessee on that turnover. In this situation, the assessee's assessment under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, for the year 1973-74 w....
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....e course of inter-State trade. In this state of affairs when the assessee has not paid a single pie towards Central sales tax, the assessee cannot be held entitled to any relief under section 15(b) of the Central Sales Tax Act (or, as the case may be, section 4-A of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act). The relief under these provisions is given by way of reimbursement or refund of the State tax. The relief is not granted either by way of set-off, or by way of adjustment, or by way of sheer non-assessment on the State tax. The other condition precedent for the reimbursement of the State tax also is very clearly laid down in the relief provision. The requirement is not a mere assessability to Central sales tax or even the making of an actua....
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....elief procedure. The department, perhaps, wished to avoid the time and trouble involved in making the assessment first, asking the assessee to pay the tax under the State law and also the tax under the Central Sales Tax Act, and then, after this period of waiting issue the reimbursement or refund order. Recently, however, the department would seem to have suddenly become alive to the strict requirements of the procedure for double tax relief laid down in sections 15(b) and 4-A. In the assessment now under revision, which illustrates the department's change in practice, the assessing authority refused to grant relief to the assessee for the reason that the assessee had not been assessed to Central sales tax, nor had it paid any tax under any....
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....is revision, the State Government questions the propriety of the order and direction which the Tribunal had issued in the manner aforesaid. We think we must uphold the State Government's objection. The Tribunal has set aside the assessment of the purchase turnover of Rs. 88,107 for a reason which, in our view, is not germane to that assessment. Under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, raw hides and skins are liable to single point tax at the last purchase point in the State. The assessee accepts the position that Rs. 88,107 represents the last purchases in this State of raw hides and skins. The assessment is therefore perfectly valid. It follows that the inclusion of Rs. 88,107 cannot be found fault with and set aside, as the Tribunal ha....
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....udes the power to set aside an assessment. We, however, think that this power should be exercised only for legitimate purposes connected with the assessment under appeal and not for any extraneous reasons. An assessment cannot be set aside in appeal by the Tribunal merely for the sake of directing the assessing authority to combine the assessment to be redone with another assessment under a different statute. We, accordingly, restore the assessment of the purchase turnover of Rs. 88,107 in raw hides and skins, and set aside the order of the Tribunal. It would be open to the assessee to apply for relief under sections 15(b) or section 4-A when the time comes. We do not expect the assessing authority to deliberately withhold making the Centra....
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....overnment Pleader contested the validity of the Tribunal's reasoning. He urged that under the Second Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, raw hides and skins are dealt with as constituting a distinct major item of declared goods under clause (a) of entry 7, whereas dressed hides and skins are placed in a separate category of declared goods under clause (b) of that entry. We do not, however, wish to take up the controversy and decide here and now whether, for the purpose of relief under section 15(b), hides and skins, whether in a raw or dressed state, are to be regarded as a single category of declared goods, or whether the separate categorisation under the Second Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act must be given....