- (1.) The appellants runs a photocopying business. It has been assessed to sale tax for the Assessment Year 1978-79 (in Civil Appeal No. 5339/92) and the Assessment Year 1979-80 (in Civil Appeal No. 2672/92) on the basis that there was a sale by it of the photocopied or xeroxed document to the customer. The question that we are concerned with, therefore, is whether the making of photostat copies with the use of a Xerox or other machine and delivering the copies so taken to the customer on receipt of payment amounts to a sale of goods exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959.
(2.) Section 2(n) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 read as under at the relevant time: "'Sale' with all its grammatical variations and cognate expressions means every transfer of the property in goods by one person to another in the course of business for cash or for deferred payment or other valuable consideration, but does not include a mortgage, hypothecation, charge or pledge".
(3.) It is the case of the appellant that no sales tax is involved in that contract that he enters into with the customer is only a works contract. It is the case of the respondents that the contract is of sale of the photocopies.;