CENTRAL PROVINCES MANGANESE ORE COMPANY LTD Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA SALES TAX DEPARTMENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This reference arises out of the references made by the Sales Tax Tribunal to this court in four cases. Though several questions were raised before the Sales Tax Tribunal and six of them have been referred for decision before the Division Bench in the sales tax references made to this court, the present reference by the Division Bench to the Full Bench is only upon one question, and that question is question No. (2) involved in all the references before the Division Bench. That question is as follows :

(2.) Though one common question has been referred in all the references, each reference involves a different period of assessment as shown below : Reference No. Period involved. 17 of 1964. 1-1-1947 to 30-9-1947. 18 of 1964. 1-10-1947 to 31-12-1948. 19 of 1964. 1-1-1949 to 31-12-1949. 20 of 1964. 1-1-1950 to 25-1-1950. Two things may be noted here. Firstly, the last period mentioned above ends only a day before the Constitution of India came into force on 26th January, 1950. Therefore, the assessments involved in this reference are not governed by any provision of the Constitution. We say this because different considerations may arise after the Constitution because of the enactment of article 286 of the Constitution. Secondly, the Amending Act, namely, the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1949 (No. 16 of 1949), came into force on 11th April, 1949. Therefore, only the periods involved in References Nos. 19 and 20 of 1964 would be governed by the Amending Act, whereas the periods involved in References Nos. 17 and 18 of 1964 would be governed by the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947 (No. 21 of 1947) as originally enacted.

(3.) The question arises upon a certain background which may here be mentioned. Messrs C.P. Manganese Ore Company Limited was a private limited company with its head office in London, but it carried on very extensive business in the former Central Provinces and Berar and later on partly in Madhya Pradesh and partly in the State of Maharashtra. It owned 22 manganese ore mines in Madhya Pradesh prior to the reorganisation of States, from which it excavated manganese ore and consigned mostly to foreign countries. The company was registered as a dealer under the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, which came into force on 27th May, 1947. The company also used to prepare a mixture of manganese from its different mines known as the "oriental mixture" and it is with the sale of this particular mixture that we are concerned in all these references. According to the company, the oriental mixture was formed by mixing manganese at the sidings at the various seaports in India from which it was to be consigned. The railway wagons were filled with ore from different mines, and when the wagons reached the seaport, they were marshalled in a certain set pattern and dumped, so as to produce a heap of oriental mixture. It was alleged that it required certain special specifications of ore to form the oriental mixture.