2017 (10) TMI 643
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....r directly from farmers situate within this State for and on behalf of the concern. For the relevant assessment years the Assessing Authority took the view that the purchases made by the Branch Office were concluded purchases effected within the State of U.P. and therefore exigible to tax under the U.P. Trade Tax Act, 19481. The Assessing Authority has also rested its decision on the application filed by the revisionist for the purposes of registration under the 1948 Act to hold that the Branch Office and the Head Office of the concern were liable to be viewed as separate entities especially since the revisionist had declared that he would not be effecting purchases for any ex U.P. principal. It has also taken the position that the recital contained in the application made by the revisionist for the purposes of registration that it would not undertake any business of purchase on behalf of ex- U.P. principals to be determinative of the liability of the revisionist to tax under the Act. The Tribunal while affirming the view taken by the Assessing Authority, has not only reiterated and affirmed the conclusions of the assessing authority with respect to a concluded purchase made by th....
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....has contended that in absence of any pre-existing contract of sale, the purchases within the State of U.P. were liable to be viewed as a concluded purchase and therefore liable to tax under the provisions of the 1948 Act. In his submission, the movement of goods was not shown to be in pursuance of any contract of sale so as to warrant the transactions being placed within the ambit of Section 3(a) of the 1956 Act. He has further drawn the attention of the Court to the specific observations made by the Supreme Court in Bakhtawar Lal and appearing in paragraph 17 of the report to submit that there was evidently a break between the purchase and dispatch of goods and in the absence of the transactions satisfying the test of an "inextricable link" the transactions were not liable to the protection conferred by Section 3(a) of the 1956 Act. While this submission is noted it becomes relevant to point out that no material was referred to or relied upon to establish that there was a break in the chain represented by the purchase transactions or that there was an inseparable break in the transactions. To amplify the submission so made by Sri Pandey, the Court records that essentially his cont....
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....se of the assessee. The consideration of this issue by both the Assessing Authority as well as the Tribunal has proceeded on the premise that the Branch Office was a separate entity which effected a purchase within the State of U.P. and which resulted in the occurrence of a concluded transaction. The acceptance of this line of reasoning would compel us to recognise the purchase made by the Branch Office as one made of its own volition, on its own account and in a sense separate and distinct from a transaction entered into by the concern. This proposition cannot possibly be accepted. The purchases made within the State of U.P. were transactions entered into by the concern through its agency which was the Branch Office. The consignment of the goods by the Branch to the Head Office of the concern in the State of Jammu and Kashmir again was not to a separate or distinct entity. Both offices, as has been held by the Supreme Court, were agencies or arms of a common concern. The Tribunal in this sense appears to have committed an even greater mistake in seeking out a contract between the Branch Office and the Head Office. For reasons noted above, this line of enquiry was clearly and princ....
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.... effected by the respondent-dealer were inter-State purchases. The purchases were made by the respondent as a commission agent on behalf of the ex-U.P. principals and the goods purchased under each of the purchases were duly despatched to such principals. It is found that such despatch took place not later than three days from the date of purchase, as soon as the railway wagon was available. The purchase of goods and their despatch to ex- State principal were parts of the same transaction. The movement of goods from Uttar Pradesh to another State was occasioned by and was the result - or the incident of - the purchase. It was the consequence of the purchase. Such movement of goods, though not proved to have been expressly stated in the contract of sale, was yet held to have been agreed upon between the parties. We must emphasise that the question whether a sale/purchase is an inter-State sale/purchase depends on the facts of each case. The principles are well settled; it is only a question of application of these principles to the facts found in each case. 15. Sri Sehgal relies particularly upon "Case No. III" contained in the first extract and clause (iii) mentioned in the secon....