TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1985 (8) TMI 72
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... whether the sales effected by the respondent-assessee in the three concerned years of goods imported and supplied to customers on the strength of Actual Users' Import Licences of the customers were exempt from sales tax under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1950, on the ground that these were sales "in the course of import of the goods into the territory of India"? 2. The respondent-assessee deals in chemicals, dyes, etc. The concerned assessment years are 1961-62, 1962-63 and 1963-64. The respondent-assessee was assessed to sales tax under the General Sales Tax Act, 1950 on the turnover of sales effected by them in those years of goods imported on the strength of the customers' Actual Users Import Licences and supplied to them. Such tu....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....re put through by the respondent-assessee, as found both by the Tribunal and the High Court, in the following manner. The indigenous purchaser, for example M/s Hindustan Insecticides Limited in Kerala, used to place orders with the respondent-assessee quoting his Import Licence Number, quantity of goods, rate, etc. as agreed to by previous correspondence with the respondent-assessee; the respondent-assessee then placed orders with the foreign supplier for the supply of the goods and in such orders the name of the local purchaser who required the goods as also its licence numbers, were specified; the actual import was done on the strength of two documents like: (a) the Actual Users' Import Licence and (b) Letter of Authority issued by Chie....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....f the conditions of the pre-existing contract of sale between the respondent-assessee and the local purchaser. If that be so the view of the Tribunal and the High Court that the sales in question were in the course of import will have to be upheld. 4. The test of integral connection or inextricable link between the sale and the actual import or export in order that the sale could become a sale in the course of import or export has been clearly enunciated by this Court in Ben Gorm Nilgiri Plantations Company's case (supra). There the question related to sale of tea which was claimed to be in the course of export out of the territory of India and though by majority it was held that the sales in question were not "in the course of export", th....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....icable link between the first sale following the import and the actual import provided by an obligation to import arising from statute, contract or mutual understanding or nature of the transaction which links the sale to import which cannot, without committing a breach of statute or contract or mutual understanding, be sapped. 5. Counsel for the appellant attempted to suggest that the aforesaid test of integral connection or inextricable link between the sale and the actual import or export in order that the sale could become a sale in the course of import or export has been diluted or deviated from in Coffee Board, Bangalore v. Joint Commercial Tax Officer, Madras and Anr - (1970) 3 SCR 147 but the suggestion has to be rejected. We may p....