2014 (3) TMI 737

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....002 and dismissed the appeals filed by the appellants herein. 2. Short facts are as follows: the appellants are engaged in the business of dealing in areca nuts as a commission agent. The appellants purchase areca nuts from the local growers and thereafter, dispatch the same to the dealers located outside the State of Kerala. The appellants are entitled for a commission on such sales. 3. The commodity in question, viz. areca nut falls under Entry 7 of the First Schedule to the Kerala General Sales Tax, 1963 ('the Act' for short). So far as local purchase of areca nut is concerned, it is liable to tax at the last point of purchase by the dealer liable to tax under Section 5(1) of the Act in the State. Whereas it is taxable at the point....

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....neral Sales Tax Act, 1963 (15 of 1963) the Government of Kerala having considered it necessary in the public interest so to do, hereby make the following amendment to Notification issued in G.O.(P) No.180/99/TD dated 31st December, 1999 and published as S.R.O. No.1091/99 in Kerala Gazette Extraordinary dated 31st December 1999, namely :- AMENDMENT In the said notification in Schedule 1 after serial number 9 and the entries against it in colums No.(2) and (3) and (4), the following serial numbers and entries shall be respectively inserted namely :- 10 Newsprint 8 2 11 Arecanut 8 4 12 Cardamom 8 4 13 Pepper 8 4 This notification shall be deemed to have come into force on the 1st day of January, 2000. Tax, if any, already ....

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....000 to 05.02.2000, dated 05.12.2001. 7. Aggrieved by the said order passed by the assessing authority, the appellant-assessee had filed an Original Petition before the learned Single Judge of the High Court. The learned Single Judge has observed that the purport of the notification is clear and covers two situations, i.e., (a) tax collected at a higher rate by the dealers from buyers should not be recovered, if it is not paid to the Revenue and (b) tax paid to the Revenue whether after collection or not ought not be refunded and concluded that the appellant-assessee is not entitled to refund of tax already paid and therefore, dismissed the case of the appellant-assessee. 8. Aggrieved by the aforesaid, the assessee had approached the D....

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....the higher rate shall be paid over to the government and tax, if any, already paid shall not be refunded" as contained in the notification? 14. We have already noticed the notification so issued by the State Government with retrospective effect from 01.01.2000. The lis herein relates to the latter part of the notification which has two prongs contemplating two different situations in respect of tax payable on erstwhile higher rate of tax. First, that the tax collected at a higher rate shall be paid over to the State Government and second, that if the tax is already paid by the dealer at the higher rate, it shall not be refunded back to the dealer. By implication, the first category would include the tax collected by the dealer from the b....