TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2006 (12) TMI 474
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....moulds which, according to the petitioners, are "rough cast iron castings ". At the time of assessment the company claimed that "rough cast iron castings" was actually cast iron within the broad term "iron and steel" as included in section 14(iv) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (in short, "the CST Act") and was a declared goods of special importance under the provisions of section 14 of the CST Act, 1956. The company initially claimed set-off of tax payable against sales of an item of iron and steel manufactured in West Bengal as provided in section 22(2) of the 1994 Act. Such claim for set-off of the petitioner was disallowed by the Commercial Tax Officer, Bally Charge on the basis of the finding that cast iron, the declared goods, cove....
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....eclaration form No. 12 and it did not pay tax at the prescribed rate of four per cent. The appellate authority pointed out that declaration form No. 12 could be used only in cases of purchasing raw materials for the purpose of manufacturing a particular product and manufacturing meant transforming the raw materials into a different type of product. According to the appellate authority utilisation of declaration form No. 12 was contrary to the petitioner's contention that the consumed product and the manufactured product were same inasmuch as benefit of declaration form No. 12 was not available in case of resale of the same materials. The appellate authority however partly accepted that consumption of hard coke was higher because of freq....
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....ished product fell within the same item under the broad category. The concerned authorities did not accept the company's contention that the company's finished product was covered under the item cast iron mentioned in section 14(iv)(i) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956. The said stand of the Revenue cannot be accepted in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Vasantham Foundry v. Union of India reported in [1995] 99 STC 87; [1995] 28 STA 406. In the said decision the Supreme Court after elaborate discussions about the nature and meaning of cast iron held (page 99 of STC): "Therefore, in our view 'cast iron casting' in its basic or rough form must be held to be 'cast iron'. But, if thereafter any machining o....
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.... unmachined rough CT castings and the raw materials such as pig iron, cast, iron, scraps, etc., required for manufacture of such goods belong to the same category of goods laid down under clause (i) of sub-section (iv) of section 14 of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956. So the petitionerdealer did not fulfil the basic condition of sub-section (2) of section 22 . . . " At the time of hearing, the learned State Representative made his submissions accepting that the raw materials and the finished product came within different categories under general description of "iron and steel" in section 14(iv)(i) of the CST Act. Mr. Battacharya has placed before this Tribunal the features and the manufacturing process to highlight the distinction between p....
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....stitutes a new species of commercial commodity more clearly now. It follows that when one commercial commodity is transformed into another, it becomes a separate commodity for purposes of sales tax." In K.A.K. Anwar & Co. v. State of Tamil Nadu [1998] 108 STC 258 the Supreme Court was considering whether dressed hides and skins are different goods from raw hides and skins. The Supreme Court held therein (page 268): "16. When dressed hides and skins are different goods from raw hides and skins, we do not find anything in the language of section 14 of the Central Sales Tax Act which can lead us to the conclusion that these two different commodities were to be regarded as constituting a single commodity for the purpose of t....
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....slature, however, chose to single out different types of pulses only to be regarded as a single commodity. Notwithstanding the fact that the raw hides and skins had been held by this court in Hajee Abdul Shukoor's case [1964] 15 STC 719; [1964] 8 SCR 217 as being distinct from dressed hides and skins the Legislature did not think it appropriate to insert a clause similar to section 15(d) which may have had the effect of regarding raw hides and skins and dressed hides and skins as being treated as a single commodity for the purposes of levy of tax." Thus the company's contention that pig iron and cast iron scrap are to be treated as same commodities as both the commodities come within the broad description of "iron and steel" cann....