RAMESH RANGANATHAN J.

The question of law which arises for consideration, in these batch of tax revision cases filed by the State of A.P. against the order of the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal in T. A. Nos. 894 of 2002 and batch dated March 31, 2004, is :

"Whether gunnies which have suffered tax within the State of A.P. can, under section 6-C of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 again be subjected to tax when they are sold along with the contents, despite the prescription in entry 19 of the First Schedule that gunnies, sold with or without its contents, are liable to be taxed only at the point of first sale in the State ?"

Facts, in brief, are that the respondents, in these batch of tax revision cases, are rice millers and registered dealers under the APGST Act. In respect of some of the assessees, the Commercial Tax Officers finalised assessments exempting the value of gunnies purchased from local registered dealers in the State. The contention, that under entry 19(iii) of the First Schedule to the APGST Act gunnies were taxable at the first sale point, was accepted by the assessing authorities and tax was levied only at one per cent under section 5A of the APGST Act. The Deputy Commissioners (CT) took up revision of assessment, under section 20(2) of the APGST Act, in so far as it related to exemption of second sale of gunnies from being taxed and, invoking section 6-C of the APGST Act, 1957 revised the assessment levying tax at four per cent on the turnover of gunnies at the same rate of tax as applicable to the rice contained therein. Aggrieved thereby, the dealers preferred appeals before the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal. In respect of a few other assessees, the Commercial Tax Officers themselves followed the reasoning of the Deputy Commissioners (CT) and levied tax at four per cent on the turnover of gunnies sold along with rice. The Deputy Commissioner (CT) dismissed the appeals preferred against such orders of assessment. Aggrieved thereby, the dealers preferred appeals before the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal (S.T.A.T.). The S.T.A.T. by order dated March 31, 2004 held that section 6-C of the APGST Act would not apply, to gunnies which had already suffered tax within the State and that APGST suffered gunnies were not liable to be taxed again when they were sold along with rice to the Food Corporation of India.

Aggrieved thereby the present batch of T.R. Cs., all of which relate to the assessment years 1997-98 to 2000-2001, are filed by the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Sri K. Raji Reddy, Special Standing Counsel for Commercial Taxes, would contend that the non obstante clause in the amended section 6-C is "notwithstanding anything contained in sections 5, 5F, 6 and section 6A" of the Act and when packing material is sold along with goods, it shall suffer tax at the rate at which its contents are to be taxed notwithstanding what has been provided for in section 5(1) read with the First Schedule to the APGST Act. Learned Special Standing Counsel would submit that, while section 5(1) is subject to other provisions of the APGST Act and requires tax to be paid at the rates of tax and at the points of levy specified in the Schedules, section 6-C which relates to levy of tax on packing material is notwithstanding anything contained in section 5. The rate of tax payable on packing material, when sold along with the goods, would therefore be the same as that of the goods packed or filled, irrespective of whether or not packing material had earlier suffered tax within the State. Learned Special Standing Counsel would submit that though the point of levy is not specifically mentioned in section 6-C, which only mentions the rate of tax, the point of levy shall be deemed to have been included in the substantive provision of section 6-C in view of the non obstante clause contained therein. According to the learned Special Standing Counsel, section 6-C is also a charging section and has an overriding effect over sectio