Page 66 - GSTL_14th May 2020_Vol 36_Part 2

168 GST LAW TIMES [ Vol. 36
tion 1 to Section 3(b) of the Central Sales Tax Act would lead to anomalous
results. If, after the landing of the goods in Delhi, the railway receipts are
endorsed one after another to ten persons and the delivery is taken by the
tenth person, say after three months, the movement of goods would on the
dealer’s interpretation artificially continue for three months after the land-
ing of the goods in Delhi.”
7. In the judgment under appeal, the Rajasthan High Court, however,
disagreed with this view of the Delhi High Court relying on the case of Guljag
Industries Limited (supra), in which three appeals were dealt with in a common
judgment. It was held by the High Court in the judgment under appeal :-
“12. Therefore, the proposition of law by the Learned Commissioner in
the impugned circulars that “as per legal position, ‘transit’ gets over as soon
as a reasonable time elapses for the consignee to elect whether he would
take the goods away or leave them in the transporters premises, because at
the conclusion of reasonable time there is deemed to be a constructive de-
livery of goods from the transporter to the consignee”, cannot be said to be
a correct legal position. The subsequent Circular dated 15-4-1998 purport-
edly issued to ameliorate the situation for dealers created by previous circu-
lar dated 16-9-1997, merely ended up extending the time limit of 10 days to
30 days without undoing the damage done by the previous circular by pro-
pounding a particular view of constructive delivery. In fact, the very power
to issue such circulars by the Learned Commissioner giving a particular in-
terpretation of law purportedly binding on all the assessing authorities is
doubtful. There is no specific provision in the Sales Tax Act, either under
the RST Act or under the CST Act, empowering the Commissioner to issue
such circulars, as against such powers conferred under Section 119 of the
Income Tax Act on the Central Board of Direct Taxes. Even Section 119 of
the Income Tax Act, which empowers the highest administrative body un-
der the Act, namely CBDT, by way of its proviso restricts and provides that
no such order, instruction or direction shall be issued so as to require any
Income Tax authority to make a particular assessment or dispose of a par-
ticular case in a particular manner and such orders or instructions shall also
not interfere with the discretion of the Commissioner (Appeals) in exercise
of its appellate functions. Therefore, this Court cannot countenance the is-
suance of such circulars by the Commissioner of Sales Tax, which unduly
fetter with the quasi-judicial discretion of the assessing authorities, who are
expected in law to give their findings of fact and interpret the statutory law
in their own quasi-judicial discretion in accordance with the law as inter-
preted by the Supreme Court or jurisdictional High Court. The circulars is-
sued by the Commissioner in the aforesaid manner like done vide Circulars
dated 16-9-1997 and 15-4-1998 are likely to hamper and throttle such quasi-
judicial discretion which vests with the assessing authorities. Therefore, the
aforesaid circulars issued by the Commissioner aforesaid on 15-4-1998 (S.
No. 1132A) and 16-9-1997 (S. No. 1115B) are in conflict with the Division
Bench decision of this Court in Guljag Industries Ltd.’s case (supra) and even
otherwise they are found to be without any authority of law. Consequently,
both these circulars are found to be ultra vires and are hereby quashed.
13. In view of aforesaid, since there was no basis for the Learned Commis-
sioner to stipulate the time frame of 10 days or 30 days and thereafter, to
require the assessing authority to invoke the concept of constructive deliv-
ery so as to deny the exemption of CST on subsequent sales made by trans-
fer of documents of title to the goods made under Section 6(2) of Act,
though requisite conditions of Section 6(2) of the Act are fulfilled by the
dealer and such circulars have already been held to be ultra vires and have

GST LAW TIMES  14th May 2020  66