Jatindra Nath Gupta vs Province of Bihar

Maurice Gwyer, C.J.—In this case the Appellants are the Province of Madras, who appeal against a judgment of the Madras High Court

dated September 5, 1941, in which it was held that certain taxes which ""had been levied on the Respondents under the Madras General Sales Tax

Act, 1939 Madras Act No. IX of 1939., (to which for convenience we refer hereafter as the Madras Act) were in the nature of duties of excise

and therefore beyond the competence of the Madras Legislature to impose. In view of the importance of the question to the Provinces generally, in

more than one of which legislation similar to the Madras Act has already been enacted, we acceded to the application of the Advocates-General of

Bengal and the United Provinces to be allowed to appear at the hearing and to support the arguments of the Advocate-General of Madras. The

Advocate-General of India, to whom we had caused notice of the proceedings to be sent, also appeared and addressed arguments to us in

support of the judgment of the High Court. We therefore had the advantage of a very full discussion of all points which ariso in the case and we are

indebted to counsel for the assistance which they have afforded us.

The Respondents carry on business at Vizianagram in the Province of Madras. There business consists of the purchase of groundnuts for the

purpose of extracting oil from the kernels of the nuts and the making of groundnut cake out of the residue. They sell this oil and cake, and, since

they are themselves the manufacturers, it follows that each sale which they effect is the first sale of the commodity after its manufacture or

production.

The Madras Act provides that, subject to the provisions of the Act, every dealer, that is to say, every person who carries on the business of

buying and selling goods, is to pay in each year a tax on his turnover, if that turnover is not less than Rs. 10,000, the tax being at a flat rate of five

rupees (afterwards reduced to four) on a turnover between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 20,000 and varying with the amount of the turnover on a turnover

of more than Rs. 20,000. The expression ""turnover"" is defined as meaning the aggregate amount for which goods are either bought or sold by a

dealer, whether for cash or for deferred payment or other valuable consideration, with certain exceptions not here material. The expression

goods"" is defined as meaning all kinds of movable property, other than actionable claims, stocks and shares and securities, and includes all

materials, commodities and articles. The Act further provides that the buyer and seller are not both to be taxed in respect of the same transaction

of sale, but only one of them, as determined by rules made under the Act; and that, when the amount for which any goods have been bought by a

dealer has been included in his turnover, the amount for which the same goods are sold by him is not to be included in his turnover for the purposes

of the Act. The turnover for all purposes of the Act is to be determined in accordance with, and the tax is to be assessed, levied and collected in

such manner and in such instalments as may be prescribed by, rules made for the purpose by the Provincial Government. There are various other

provisions in the Act, mostly dealing with the machinery of assessment and collection, but nothing turns upon them in the present appeal.

The assessing authority under the Act assessed the Respondents to tax both in respect of their purchase is(sic) groundnuts and of their sales of

oil and cake, holding that the purchase of groundnuts was a business distinct from the business of manufacturing oil and cake. Accordingly the sum

of Rs. 160-11-0 was demanded from the Respondents by way of tax, and was paid by them under protest. The Respondents then took

proceedings in the Court of the District Munsif at Vizianagram for a declaration that the Madras Act and certain rules made thereunder were ultra

vires the Madras Legislature and for an order directing a refund of the sum of Rs. 160-11-0, together with Rs. 3 interest thereon. The learned

Munsif gave judgment in favour of the Respondents on both points, holding that a tax on the first sale of goods manufactured in the Province was a

duty of excise which the Madras Legislature were not competent to impose. There was an appeal to the District Court at Vizagapatam, but, on the

application of the Advocate-General of Madras, the appeal was transferred to the High Court. A Bench of the High Court, composed of the Chief

Justice and Chandrasekhara Ayyar J., upheld the judgment- of the lower Court ; and it is from the High Court''s decision that the appeal now

comes to us.

Under the Constitution Act the Federal Legislature has an exclusive power to impose duties of excise. (List I, entry No. 45) and the Provincial

Legislature an exclusive power to impose taxes on the sale of goods (List II, entry No. 48). The relation of a duty of excise to a tax on sales was

much discussed in the Central Provinces case [1939] P.C.R. 18., in which the Court delivered an advisory opinion on the question whether an Act

imposing a tax on retail sales of petrol was within the competence of the Central Provinces Legislature. All the members of the Court were of

opinion that the Legislature was competent to impose such a tax, though their reasons differed. Jayakar J. held that all taxes on the sale of goods

for purposes of consumption"", by which he presumably meant taxes on retail sales, ought to be regarded as exclusively within the competence of

the Provincial Legislature, provided that they were in no way connected with the production or manufacture of the goods within the Province; but

that all other taxes on the sale of goods were duties of excise and therefore exclusively within the competence of the Central Legislature. The other

two members of the Court were not prepared to go to these lengths, and in effect drew the dividing line between the Central and Provincial

spheres at the point of manufacture or production. They were of opinion that, on the true construction of entry No. 45 in List I and entry No. 48 in

List II, the power of the Central Legislature to impose duties of excise was a power to impose duties on the manufacturer or producer of the

goods and did not extend further, the power to impose a tax upon the sale of goods after manufacture or production being reserved to the

Provinces. They left open however the question on which side of the line a tax upon the first sales of goods manufactured or produced in the

Province was to be regarded as falling. Thus one judgment would confine the power of the Central Legislature to the imposition of duties ""on the

manufacturer or producer of the excisable articles, or at least at the stage of or in connection with, manufacture or production"". In the other this

sentence"" is to be found: ""for all practical purposes, it [that is, a tax on first sales] is a tax on the manufacturer or producer, and the burden is in the

first instance imposed on him, though of course, it being an indirect imposition, he could pass it on ; but the essence is that the tax is imposed on a

sale by the producer or manufacturer and not on a sale by any subsequent vendor"". The learned Judge who used these words, the late Sulaiman J.,

added that, though it was not necessary to decide the question, there might be some diffi-culty in upholding a provincial tax. on first sales. In the

present appeal we have to answer the question which was thus left open in the earlier case.

We may here refer to a contention raised by counsel on behalf of the Appellants that a turnover tax such as is imposed by the Madras Act is not

a tax on specific goods and that therefore the expression ""duty of excise"" could never in any circumstances be appropriate to it. It may be

conceded that a duty of excise is a duty leviable with respect to specific goods; but where a turnover tax is leviable at a specified rate on the

aggregate sum produced by the sale of a number of different articles or commodities, then it seems to us that it is a tax levied at the specified rate

on each sale of those goods or commodities. A system of turnover taxation is conceivable where it may not be easy, or even possible, to identify

the tax on a particular sale; but no such difficulty arises in a case under the Madras Act, at least if the turnover exceeds Rs. 20,000 per annum, as

that of the Respondents does. We do not think therefore that there is any substance in the Appellants'' contention.

In the Central Provinces Case the Opinions expressed were advisory Opinions only, but we do not think that we ought to regard them as any

less binding upon us on that account. We accept therefore the general division between the Central and Provincial spheres of taxation which

commended itself to the majority of the Court in that case. They did not reach their conclusions by assigning any particular technical meaning to the

expressions ""duty of excise or ""tax on the sale of goods"", but rather by construing the language in which the taxing powers of the Centre and

Provinces respectively are conferred in such a way as to give effect to what appeared to them to be the scheme of the Act and to reconcile the

conflict which might otherwise arise between two independent taxing authorities. They recognized that the expression ''duty of excise'' is wide

enough to include a tax on sales ; but where power is expressly given to another authority to levy a tax on sales, it is clear that duty of excise'' must

be given a more restricted meaning than it might otherwise bear. On the other hand the fact that ''duty of excise'' is itself an expression of very

general import is no reason at all for refusing to give to the expression ''tax on sales'' the meaning which it would ordinarily and naturally convey. In

these circumstances the question at issue in the present appeal appears to us to lie within a very small compass.

The duties of excise which the Constitution Act assigns exclusively to the Central Legislature are, according to the Central Provinces Case,

duties levied upon the manufactory or producer in respect of the manufacture or production of the commodity taxed. The tax on the sale of goods,

which the Act assigns exclusively to the Provincial Legislatures, is a tax levied on the occasion of the sale of the goods. Plainly a tax levied on the

first sale must in the nature of things be a tax on the sale by the manufacturer or producer ; but it is levied upon him qua seller and not qua

manufacturer or producer. It may well be that a manufacturer or producer is sometimes doubly hit ; but so is the taxpayer in Canada who has to

pay income-tax levied by the Province for provincial purposes, and also income-tax levied by the Dominion for Dominion purposes: see Caron v.

The King [1924] A.C. 999; Forbes v. Att.-Gen. for Manitoba [1937] A.C. 260. If the taxpayer who pays a sales tax is also a manufacturer or

producer of commodities subject to a central duty of excise, there may no doubt be an overlapping in one sense ; but there is no overlapping in

law. The two taxes which he is called on to pay are economically two separate and distinct imposts. There is in theory nothing to prevent the

Central Legislature from imposing a duty of excise on a commodity as soon as it comes into existence, no matter what happens to it afterwards,

whether it be sold, consumed, destroyed, or given away. A taxing authority will not ordinarily impose such a duty, because it is much more

convenient administratively to collect the duty (as in the case of most of the Indian Excise Acts) when the commodity leaves the factory for the first

time, and also because the duty is intended to be an indirect duty which the manufacturer or producer is to pass on to the ultimate consumer, which

he could not do if the commodity had, for example, been destroyed in the factory itself. It is the fact of manufacture which attracts the duty, even

thongh it may be collected later ; and we may draw attention to the Sugar Excise Act in which it is specially provided that the duty is payable not

only in respect of sugar which is issued from the factory but also in respect of sugar which is consumed within the factory. In the case of a sales tax,

the liability to tax arises on the occasion of a sale, and a sale has No. necessary connexion with manufacture or production. The manufacturer or

producer cannot of course sell his commodity unless he has first manufactured or produced it ; but he is liable, if at all, to a sales tax because he

sells and not because he manufactures or produces; and he would be free from liability if he chose to give away everything which came from his

factory.

In our opinion the power of the Provincial Legislatures to levy a tax on the sale of goods extends to sales of every kind, whether first sales or

not; and we regret that we are unable to agree with the contrary opinion which has beer-expressed by the High Court. The gist of the judgment of

the High Court is to be found in the following passage:- ""What the Court has to decide in the first instance is whether a tax on the sale of goods by

the manufacturer or producer is so connected with their manufacture or production as to amount to an excise duty. The High Court of Australia has

said that a tax imposed on the first sale of goods is so connected with their production that it is an excise duty, and no reason has been advanced in

the course of the argument in this case to induce us to think otherwise. The tax operates on the goods themselves and it is imposed before they

leave the hands of the manufacturer or producer. In the normal course he is certainly not going to part with his goods, until a contract of sale has

been entered into. This being the case, it seems to us that the tax is intimately connected with the manufacture or production of the goods. We hold

that a Provincial Legislature in India has no power to tax a sale by the manufacturer or producer, as for the reasons given this would mean the

imposition of an excise duty and the assump tren of a power vested only in the Centre"". We do not think, for reasons which we give hereafter, that

the Australian case referred to has any bearing on the question which we are now called on to determine. That question is this: assuming the right of

the Central Legislature to tax the production of a commodity and the right of the Provincial Legislature to tax its sales, can a good reason be shown

for excluding a particular category of sales on the ground only that they are sales by the producer ? According to the High Court a tax on the first

sale of goods is so connected with their production that it is an excise duty; but, with great respect to the Court, that appears to us to be hardly the

question. Every tax on the sale of goods produced in India is in a sense an excise duty, whether the sale is the first second or third, though an

excise duty is not necessarily a tax on sales; and the High Court should have formulated their proposition thus: a tax on the first sale of goods is so

connected with their production that it cannot properly be described as, and is not in fact, a tax on sale. Stated in this way the proposition is surely

difficult to sustain. We may recall that in 1935, when the Constitution Act was passed, the distinction between a producer''s or manufacturer''s

sales tax and sales taxes (including retail sales taxes) of other kinds was familiar to economists and those concerned with public finance (see

Findlay Shirras: Science of Public Finance, Vol. II, Ch. 25); and it is therefore not without significance that Parliament did not think fit to confine

the provincial taxing power in terms to sales taxes other than taxes on first sales. It is also material, even if not necessarily conclusive, to point out

that the judgment of the High Court would deprive the Provincial Legislature of the whole yield of taxes on first sales, and not merely of the tax on

the first sale of commodities which are also subject to a duty of excise; and it would do so without in practice conferring any corresponding benefit

on the Central fisc, since for plain reasons of convenience the number of commodities on the production of which it is administratively worth while

to impose an excise duty will always be very limited.

Our attention was drawn to a number of Canadian, Australian and American decisions which were alleged to throw light upon the principles

applicable to this appeal, and it is desirable that we should say something about them. They are not of course binding on us; but, as was said in the

Central Provinces Case, such decisions, if relevant, will always be listened to in this Court with attention and respect.

The Canadian cases which were cited do not seem to afford any assistance, since analogous problems in Canada are always concerned with

questions of direct and indirect taxation ; and if a Provincial tax is held to be an indirect tax, it is unnecessary for the Court to consider whether it

may not also be a duty of excise: see, for example Att.-Gen. for British Columbia v. The Canadian Pacific Railway Co. [1927] A.C. 934, where a

tax on every person purchasing within the Province fuel oil for the first time after its manufacture in, or importation into, the Province was held to be

invalid as an indirect tax, and the question whether it might not also be bad as an excise duty was left unanswered. In contrast to the case just cited

we may refer to Att.-Gen. for British Columbia v. Kingcome Navigation Co. [1934] A.C. 45, in which a fuel oil tax imposed by a Province upon

every consumer of fuel oil according to the quantity which he had consumed was held to be valid as a direct tax, because it was demanded from

the very persons who it was intended or desired should pay it.

The Australian cases arc rather more in point, and in particular the High Court has laid great stress on Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd. v.

South Australia [192C] 38 Com. L.R. 408, which was also discussed at length in the Central Provinces Case. In this Australian case the validity of

a so-called income-tax of three pence per gallon imposed by a State on vendors of motor spirit was considered, a vendor being defined as a

person selling or delivering motor spirit within the State to person''s within the State for the first time after its entry into, or its manufacture in, the

State. This was held to be a duty of excise and therefore not within the competence of the State Legislature, the power of the Commonwealth

Parliament to impose duties of customs and excise being an exclusive one. Some of the learned Judges who decided the case, it is true, were of

opinion that it was an excise duty because it was connected with the production of the commodity, but others took a wider view: see especially the

judgment of Higgins J., (at p. 435). where he says: ""For the purpose of Section 90 and our Constitution as a whole, customs duty is a duty on

importation or exportation whether by land or by sea ; whereas excise duty means a duty on the manufacture, production, etc., in the country itself

; and it matters not whether the duty is imposed at the moment of actual sale or not, or sale and delivery, or consumption."" In Matthews v. The

Chicory Marketing Board (1938) 60 Com. L.R. 263, a levy of l on producers for every half acre of land planted with chicory was held by a

majority of the Court to be a duty of excise. A very full account of the history of excise duties is given by Dixon J. in his judgment in that case, and

the learned Judge observes: ""It should not be overlooked that so far there is no direct decision (i.e., by the Australian Courts) inconsistent with the

view that a tax on commodities may be an excise although it is levied not upon, or in connection with, production, manufacture or treatment of

goods or the preparation of goods for sale or for consumption, but upon sale, use or consumption and is imposed independently of the place of

production (of the judgment of Rich J. in The Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd. v. South Australia ; John Fairfax & Sons, Ltd., and Smith''s

Newspapers Ltd. v. New South Wales (1927) 39 Com. L.R. 139. What is decided is that to be an excise the tax must be imposed in respect of

commodities"". And then later: ""The basal conception of an excise in the primary sense which the framers of the Constitution are regarded as having

adopted is a tax directly affecting commodities.... To be an excise the tax must be levied ''upon goods'', but those apparently simple words permit

of much flexibility in application. The tax must bear a close relation to the production or manufacture, the sale or the consumption of goods, and

must be of such a nature as to effect them as the subjects of manufacture or production or as articles of commerce"" (pp. 303, 304).

Having regard to the above opinions, we find it impossible to say that the expression ""duties of excise"" even in Australia is limited to duties

imposed in connection with the production of a commodity alone. We should be disposed to say on the contrary that in Australia all taxes on the

sale of commodities are, or may be regarded, as, duties of excise ; but whether this be so or not, it is clear that the Commonwealth Oil Refineries

Case cannot be treated as having the conclusive authority which the High Court of Madras seem to have attributed to it. We should be unwilling

also for another reason to follow blindly, the Australian decisions. Under the Australian Constitution power to impose duties of excise is, as we

have said, the exclusive right of the Commonwealth Parliament ; the residuary taxing power remains in the States. In the Indian Constitution Act the

whole of the taxing power in this particular sphere is expressly apportioned between the Centre and the Provinces, to the one being assigned the

power to impose duties of excise, to the other taxes on the sale of goods. It is natural enough, when considering the ambit of an express power in

relation to an unspecified residuary power, to give a broad interpretation to the former at the expense of the latter ; and this indeed is the principle

upon which the Judicial Committee have for the most part interpreted Sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act. The case however is

different where, as in the Indian Act, there are two complementary powers, each expressed in precise and definite terms. There can be no reason

in such a case for giving a broader interpretation to one, power rather than to the other; and there is certainly no reason for extending the meaning

of the expression ""duties of excise"" at the expense of the Provincial power to levy taxes on the sale of goods.

Lastly, the wellknown American case of Brown v. The State of Maryland (1827) 12 Wheat. 419, was cited to us. The State of Maryland had

passed an Act prohibiting the importers of foreign goods from selling their goods without taking out a licence, for which fifty dollars had to be paid.

This Act was held to be repugnant to the provision in the Constitution which provides that ""no State shall, without the consent of Congress, allow

any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws"". In the course of his

judgment, Marshall C.J., after observing that whatever might be the motive which had induced the prohibition against duties on imports or exports,

said: ""It is plain that the object would be as completely defeated by a power to tax the article in the hands of the importer the instant it was landed

as by a power to tax it while entering the port. There is no difference, in effect, between a power to prohibit the sale of an article and a power to

prohibit its introduction into the country. The one would be a necessary consequence of the other. No goods would be imported of none could be

sold. No object of any dibuription can be accomplished by laying a duty on importation which may had(sic) be accomplished with equal certainly

by laying a duty on the thing imported in the hands of the importer."" If a licence to sell is invalid for the above reasons, a tax on the first sale must

be no less invalid ; and it follows from the judgment of Marshall C.J., and has ever since been held to be the law of the United States, that a duty of

this kind is to be regarded as so intimately connected with the act or transaction of importation as to be itself an impost or duty on imports and

therefore beyond the power of any State in the Union to impose. We should be temerarious indeed, if we expresson any opinion upon the

reasoning of that great Judge, ever though we might find it easier to follow the reasoning of Thompson J. in his dissenting judgment; but we have no

occasion to do so. The provisions which were being considered in Broun v. Maryland(sic) were very different from those which are before us in

the present appeal. There is in the first place, as in the Australian Constitution, a specific reservation of certain taxing powers to Congress, with the

residuary powers left to the States ; and what we have already said on this point in connection with the Australian decisions is equally applicable

here. Next, it is to be observed that the American Constitution also provides that Congress alone his power ""to regulate commerce with foreign

nations, among the several States, and with the Indian tribes""; and it was held that the Maryland tax was no less repugnant to this provision also.

Marshall C.J. asked: ""To what purposes should the power to allow importation be given, unaccompanied with the power to authorize the sale of

the thing imported Congress has a right, not only to authorize importation, but to authorize the importer to sell .... What does the importer

purchase, if he does not purchase the privilege to sell ?"" On this view of the Commerce Clause, it would indeed be differents to recognize the right

of the State to impose a tax upon the first sale of the commodity, at any rate so long as it remained in the importer''s hands. In the Indian

Constitution Act no such question arises; and the right of the Provincial Legislatures to levy a tax on sales can be considered without any reference

to so formidable a power vested in the Central Government. Lastly, the prohibition in the American Constitution is against the laying of ""any

imposes(sic) or duties(sic) on imports or exports""; the prohibition is not merely d..(sic) the laying of duties of customs, but is expressed in what

conceive to be far wiser terms ; and it does nor appear to us that it would necessarily follow from the principle of the Maryland decision that in

India the payment of customs duty on goods imported from abroad or the payment of an excise duty on goods manufactured or produced in India

can be regarded as conferring some kind of licence or title on the importer or manufacturer to sell his goods to any purchaser without incurring a

further liability to tax. That was the view which commended itself to the Court in the Maryland Case and it was a view adopted and argued before

us. The analogy with the American case is an attractive one; but for -the reasons which we have given we are wholly unable to accept it.

Some of the confusion which seems to have arisen may have been caused by the suggestion which I myself made in the Central Provinces

Case that the Central Legislature should be regarded as having power ""to impose duties on excisable articles before they become part of the

general stock of the Province, that is to say, at the stage of manufacture or production, and the Provincial Legislature an exclusive power to impose

a tax on sales thereafter"". In using these words I intended to do no more than suggest a convenient dividing line between the two spheres of

jurisdiction; but I certainly did not mean to elevate the dividing line into a legal principle, the application of which might attract those numerous

American authorities, of which perhaps Brown v. Maryland was the first, where the question has been considered at what point commerce ceases

to be inter-state or foreign commerce and becomes the domestic commerce of a State and taxable by it. I should much regret if any contribution of

mine to the elucidation of the problems which come before this Court were thought to have included the introduction of some kind of ""original

package"" doctrine and all the refinements and complications which that doctrine has brought in its train in the Courts of America.

We should add that neither the Appellants nor the Respondents desired to adduce arguments on certain issues in the case which the High

Court left undecided, because on the view which they (the High Court) took of the matter it was unnecessary to decide them. We do not in these

circumstances think it obligatory upon us to express any opinion upon those issues.

The appeal will be allowed and the case remitted to the High Court of Madras with directions to substitute a decree dismissing the

Respondents'' suit. We think that the Appellants are entitled to their costs in this Court and in the two Courts below.