GOKAL CHAND MITAL, J. - (1.) IN this bunch of writ petitions the question involved is whether paddy and rice are one and the same commodity or two different commodities for the purposes of State and Central Sales Tax Act. Our answer is that they are two different commodities.
(2.) THE petitioners are the last purchasers of paddy. They husk paddy and produce rice. The rice produced by them is sold either within the State or in inter-State sale or exported out of the country. It is not disputed that the rice which is exported out of the country is not liable to tax. On this very analogy the claim of the petitioner is that the paddy out of which such rice is produced, is not liable to purchase tax. We have to consider this point alone in these writ petitions, which have been filed before the Assessing Authority proceeded to frame the assessment. The writ petitions are filed either on the receipt of notices from the Assessing Authority or without receipt of any notice. In view of the interim orders passed by this Court the assessments could not be framed. It has been settled by the highest Court in Ganesh Trading Co. v. State of Haryana [1973] 32 STC 623 and Babu Ram Jagdish Kumar and Co. v. State of Punjab [1979] 44 STC 159 that paddy and rice are two different commodities in the ordinary parlance and one dehusking change in the commodity of goods is brought out and that if paddy and rice are taxed it cannot be said that there is double taxation. Similarly, in Ben Gorm Nilgiri Plantations Co. v. Sales Tax Officer [1964] 15 STC 753 and Sterling Foods v. State of Karnataka [1986] 63 STC 239 the highest Court has held that processing changes the identity of goods. All processings may not change the identity but paddy and rice are two marketable commodities and rice cannot be called paddy and vice versa.
(3.) WITHOUT dilating any further, in view of the aforesaid decisions we hold that paddy and rice are two different marketable commodities and if there is no tax on the export of rice it cannot be said that paddy out of which rice was produced was not liable to purchase tax.;