RAJESH BALIA,J. - (1.) THESE four revision petitions involve common questions of law and, therefore, they were heard together and are being decided by a common order.
(2.) ALL these four revisions are directed against the same assessee i.e. M/s Mehar Singh Harbans Singh Cotton Ginning and Pressing Factory Gajsinghpur and relates to the assessment years 1988 -89, 1989 -90, 1990 -91 and 1991 -92 respectively. The assessee is a dealer in agricultural produce including food grains and oil seeds and is also engaged in the business of ginning and pressing the cotton. Initially, the Assessing Officer has accepted the assessee's return for Nil taxability turn over, which consisted of ST paid Wheat, Muster seeds and Bardana. However, the assessments were re -opened on believing that the assessee manufactures the cotton bails by ginning and pressing and in that manufacture, it used the packing material but he did not pay the sales tax on such packing materials as provided in the last proviso to Section 5(1) of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954, which reads as under: Provided also that when any goods are sold, packed in any material, the tax shall is leviable on the sale of such packing material, whether charged separately or not, at the same rate as is applicable to the sale of goods themselves; and if the goods are exempted from tax under Section 4 or have already been subjected to tax under the Act, then at the rate notified for such packing material from time to time.
(3.) FROM the perusal of the assessment order, it is clear that the assessee is not selling the cotton bails but is only ginning and pressing the cotton which is supplied by other entities and it has only charged its remuneration for ginning and pressing the cotton. However, the Assessing Officer by invoking the last proviso to Section 5(1) of the Act imposed the tax on the value of the pressing and Pattis and also imposed the penalty and interest of different sums for four years under Section 11 - B of the Act.;