- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) Ashok Leyland Limited, the appellant herein, is one of the major manufacturers of trucks and other motor vehicles in India. Its registered office is at Madras (Chennai). The plants manufacturing trucks and motor vehicles are situated in the State of Tamil Nadu as well as in other States. The trucks and vehicles manufactured by it are sold all over the country. For its business purposes, it maintains Regional Sales Offices (RSOs) indifferent parts of the country like, Bangalore, Trivandrum, Vijayawada, Pune, Nagpur, Indore, Calcutta, Bhubaneswar, Gauhati, Pondicherry, and so on. The appellant says that each of these Rs. Os maintains an office, a stock yard and other necessary paraphernalia for receiving, stocking, repairing and delivering motor vehicles to their customers. The appellant says that almost seventy per cent of its sales are to parties other than State Transport Undertakings (STUs). The sales to STUs are in the region of thirty per cent of its production. The Rs. Os, the appellant says, contact the local purchasers and the STUs book the orders and also deliver the vehicles to them pursuant to sales effected by them. The appellant always keeps the Rs. Os well stocked having regard to their requirements. By way of illustration, it is stated, the Rs. O at Hyderabad receives vehicles from Tamil Nadu from time to time. In respect of the vehicles sold in A. P.- whether to Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation or to other parties - sales tax is levied and collected by the State of A. P. inasmuch as they are intra-State sales for the purpose of the A. P. General Sales Tax Act. Over the years, the appellant says, it has been sending the trucks, chassis and other vehicles to Rs. Os all over the country under 'f' Form and at no time was the correctness of the 'f' Forms produced by it questioned by anyone. However, the State of Tamil Nadu has been seeking, in the recent times, to reopen the concluded assessments contending that the transfer of vehicles from Tamil Nadu to other States was not mere consignments (without effecting sales) but constitute inter-State sales within the meaning of clause (a) of Section 3 of the central Sales Tax Act, which are taxable in the State of Tamil Nadu by virtue of the provisions of the central Sales Tax Act. The attempt of the State of Tamil Nadu is to treat the said movement of vehicles as inter-State sales and tax them which would ultimately go back to that State by virtue of the provisions contained in Articles 269 and 286 of the Constitution and the central Sales Tax Act. The appellant says that it did not effect any inter-State sales and that there was only one sale in the other State which has already been taxed under the sales tax law of that other State. The appellant complains that the same transaction cannot be taxed twice, once as an intra-State sale by one State and again by the State of Tamil Nadu as an inter-State sale. The appellant complains that the reopening of assessments in some cases, even the reassessment has been made and central sales tax levied and taxing the same transaction once again (by the State of Tamil Nadu) is causing serious harassment to the appellant, making it impossible for it to carry on its business operations in a smooth and orderly manner. It approached the Madras High court with the said grievance. Though a number of factual issues were also raised in the writ petitions filed by the appellant, it was stated by their counsel at the time of hearing that they do not propose to invite the decision of the High court on these factual issues and that they would be confining their submissions only to the questions of law, viz. , the interpretation of Section 6-A of the central Sales Tax Act and the power to reopen the orders accepting 'f'forms. In certain other writ petitions filed by the appellant, several State governments were impleaded as respondents. The prayer in these writ petitions was that inasmuch as sales to STUs of those States are being a treated and taxed as inter-State sales by the State of Tamil Nadu, the levy of tax under the other State sales tax enactments treating the very sales as intra state sales within those respective States is unsustainable, and, therefore, those State governments should be directed to refund the tax collected by them to the appellant. The High court has dismissed the writ petitions holding that (t) the Madras High court cannot direct the other State governments to refund the tax levied and collected under their respective State sales tax enactments. The appellant has to approach the authorities under those Acts or the courts in those States for such relief, if they are so advised. ((r)) The provisions contained in Section 6-A have no special status or content and cannot be elevated to the status of a constitutional provision; it is like any other provision under the central Sales Tax Act. The order accepting Form 'f' is nothing more than a step-in-aid of, or a part and parcel of, the assessment proceedings, (iii) An order passed by the assessing authority accepting Form 'f' cannot be reopened except in accordance with S. 16, 32 and 55 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act read with sub-sections (2 and (2-A) of Section 9 of the central Sales Tax Act. A mere change of opinion is not sufficient to reopen the order accepting Form 'f'. Having declared the law thus, the High court directed the appellant to prefer appeals before the appropriate appellate authority where an order of assessment has been made and to go and show cause to the assessing authority where the appellant has approached the High court at the stage of show-cause notice.
(3.) Shri K. Parasaran, learned counsel for the appellant, urged the following contentions: (1 Section 6-A creates a conclusive presumption which comes into play on proof of the truth of facts stated in Form 'f'. This conclusive presumption cannot be defeated by resorting to the power of reopening conferred upon the authorities by Section 16 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act read with Section 9 (2 of the central Sales Tax Act. The order accepting Form 'f' as true cannot also be reopened for the reason that such order of acceptance gives rise to certain consequences which cannot be rectified even if the order accepting Form 'f' is reopened and revised. The vehicles have been transferred/consigned to the appellant's Rs. Os in various States which Rs. Os have issued Forms 'f' in that behalf and which, on being produced by the appellant before its assessing authority, have been accepted as true. This means that the sale of the said vehicles in the other State is an intra-State sale in that State and has in fact been taxed as such. Now if the Tamil Nadu Sales Tax authorities propose to reopen the said orders accepting the said Forms 'f' and levy central sales tax treating the said movement of vehicles to other States as inter-State sales, the consequence would be that though there is only 17 one sale, it is being taxed by two different States under two different enactments. This cannot be. The show-cause notices issued by the Tamil Nadu authorities do not say that there was a sale by the appellant to its RSO and another sale by the RSO to the State Transport Undertakings. Indeed, there cannot be a sale between the appellant and its own RSO. A person cannot sell to himself. (2 (A) Section 6-A is an independent provision. An order passed thereunder is not a part of the assessment order. An order under Section 6-A has an independent existence of its own. It is neither subject to appeal nor is it amenable to the power of revision. The order under Section 6-A is the result of a conscious adjudication. For all these reasons too, it must be held that an order accepting Form 'f', once made, is conclusive and is not liable to be reopened. (B) Even if it is held by a process of reasoning that an order accepting Form 'f' as true is amenable to power of reopening under Section 16 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act read with Section 9 (2 of the central Sales Tax Act, even then it must be held that until and unless reasonable grounds exist for doubting the truth of the statements contained in Form 'f', it cannot be reopened. Merely because an assessment is reopened, the orders accepting Forms 'f' cannot automatically be held amenable to the power of reopening. (3 All the sales effected by Rs. Os in various other States are all of the same pattern, whether the sale is to STU or to any other person. Curiously enough, the impugned reopening notices are confined only to sales effected in favour of various State Transport Undertakings in several States. No such attempt to reopen is made in respect of sales effected to persons other than STUs. As a matter of fact, the STUs are nothing but manifestations of their respective State governments. Since the STUs/state governments purchase vehicles in bulk, they insist that the sale of vehicles should take place within their respective State so that they may be able to derive income in the shape of sales tax on those sales. Unless the sales are effected within their State and tax is paid thereon under the sales tax enactment of that State, that State government or STU is not prepared to purchase vehicles from the appellant. Indeed, it is for this reason also that the appellant maintains Rs. Os almost in all the States in the country. Simply because the orders are booked by the Rs. Os and sent to head office, it does not follow that the movement of vehicles is in pursuance of or is an incidence of a contract of sale. (4 Section 4 of the central Sales Tax Act provides clearly that (a) in the case of specific or ascertained goods, the sale of goods shall be deemed to take place inside a State if the goods are within that State at the time of the contract of sale and (b) in the case of unascertained or future goods, the sale of goods should be deemed to take place inside a State when the goods are appropriated to the contract of sale by the 18 seller or by the buyer, whether the assent of the other party is prior or subsequent to such appropriation. This principle is at variance with the general principle contained in the Sale of Goods Act. It must, therefore, be held that sale of vehicles takes place only when they are appropriated towards their order and the appropriation is only when the vehicles are earmarked for delivery to the STUs. The vehicles so appropriated are always in the State to the STU of which the vehicles are earmarked and delivered. (5 In the absence of any central machinery which can decide disputes between the States, viz. , where one State claims that a particular transaction is an inter-State sale and the other State claims that it is an intra-State sale (within that State, i. e. , itself) , an order once made accepting Form 'f' as true must not be allowed to be reopened. If it is allowed to be reopened, this court may provide that the appellant assessee is entitled to implead the other State (which has levied tax upon the same transaction treating it as an intra-State sale within that State) as a party-respondent before the assessing authorities in Tamil Nadu (acting under central Sales Tax Act) so that an effective adjudication can be made as to the true nature of the transaction/sale. This court may also consider whether a direction should be given to the Union of India to create such a machinery in the interest of inter-State trade and commerce and to ensure that the assessees are not harassed and prejudiced by taxing the same transaction twice over.;