SINGH, J. - (1.) MESSRS Kasturi Lal Har Lal, petitioners, are a partnership concern carrying on the business of sale of coal.
(2.) THE petitioner-firm purchases coal in the State of Bihar and thereafter the goods are booked in the name of the petitioners. In the sales which are the subject-matter of the dispute in the present petition, the firm endorsed the documents of title to the goods while the same were in transit from Bihar to this State. The delivery of the goods was thereafter taken by the endorsees. The petitioners effected sales of the value of Rs. 9,08,548.81 by this method. No tax under the Central Sales Tax Act appears to have been paid by the petitioners in this State, and accordingly, the Sales Tax Officer, Lucknow, issued notice under section 21 of the U.P. Sales Tax Act treating the sales to be inter-State sales having been effected in this State, and imposed a tax of Rs. 18,170.98 on the petitioners. The petitioners thereafter filed the present petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Sales Tax Officer, Lucknow, to make the imposition. It now transpires that the petitioners have also preferred an appeal against the order of assessment. The main contention raised on behalf of the assessee is that inasmuch as the movement of the goods had started from the State of Bihar, the tax, if any, payable on such sales was assessable in Bihar and the Sales Tax Officer, Lucknow, had no jurisdiction to make the order of assessment.
(3.) APART from this ground of challenge to the jurisdiction of the Sales Tax Officer, at one stage it was faintly suggested that a second sale effected while the goods are in movement from one State to another by a dealer, who is not a registered dealer as is the case of the petitioners, is not liable to payment of any tax at all and as such the Sales Tax Officer had no jurisdiction to make the assessment. This ground, however, is without substance. Section 6 of the Act makes every dealer liable to pay tax under the Act on all sales effected by him in the course of inter-State trade during any year. It is not disputed that sales which are being sought to be brought to tax were effected in the course of inter-State trade. The liability to pay tax on such sales flows from section 6 which is the charging section. The proviso to section 9(1) on which reliance was placed for the proposition that it was only a registered dealer who would be liable to pay tax on such subsequent sales, does not appear to be sound. The proviso to section 9(1) has been enacted only for the purposes of determining the State which will have jurisdiction to collect the tax in respect of such subsequent sales, and as such cannot be read so as to absolve a dealer who is not registered, from all liability for payment of tax in respect of such sales. This argument, if accepted, would lead to the startling result that, while a registered dealer would be liable to pay tax on such subsequent sale, the dealer who is not so registered, would be completely absolved from any such liability. This would be plainly against the scheme of the Act, inasmuch as in fixing the rate of tax under section 8 of the Act, a registered dealer pays lower rates than that paid by an unregistered dealer. This argument as such must fail.;