The main legal point established in the judgment is that a contractor executing works contract is entitled to receive 'delivery notes' and 'C forms' under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act and the Central Sales tax Act, and the assessing authority's discretion to issue these documents should be exercised fairly and in accordance with the statutory framework.

Mohammed, J.

The writ petitioner is a private limited company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. It has its head office at Bangalore and branch office at Ernakulam. The petitioner company is doing business of buying, selling and supplying insulation materials such as glass wool, fibre glass, mineral wool, rock wool etc. It is a registered dealer under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 and Central Sales tax Act, 1956. Ext. P1 is a copy of the Certificate of registration issued under the Kerala General Sales tax-Rules 1963. Ext. P2 is the certificate of registration issued by the Sales tax Officer, 4th Circle, Ernakulam under the Central Sales tax (Registration & Turnover) Rules, 1957. Exts. P1 and P2 were issued on 16.12.1988.

2. The petitioner-company is undertaking works contract according to the requirements of the customers and insulation materials specified in Ext. P2 certificate of registration were purchased by it from outside the State using C forms. It had also used in the regular course of business the delivery notes in Form No. 26 issued by the assessing authority. On 15.11.199 2 the petitioner-company submitted an application to the first respondent requesting to issue on C form book and one new delivery note book as per Ext. P3. However, the first respondent directed the petitioner to produce the particulars regarding the taxable purchases and sales for the assessment years 1991-1992 and 1992-1993. Those particulars were produced before the first respondent by the petitioner as per Exts. P4 and P5. In spite of the production of particulars as above request for the issue of C forms and delivery notes was not considered by the first respondent. When the petitioner's representative met the first respondent soliciting his early action in that regard he openly told him on 16.12.1993 that C forms and delivery notes would not be issued to the petitioner company for the reason that the company was also engaged in the execution of works contract. In the aforesaid background the petitioner filed this writ petition praying, inter alia, for a direction to the first respondent to issue the petitioner-company C forms and delivery notes as requested in Ext. P3 application.

3. A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of respondents 1 and 2. That the filing of the application by the petitioner-company for the issue of C forms and delivery notes was not disputed. But the counter affidavit admits that C forms and delivery notes were not issued to the petitioner for the reason that the petitioner-company is engaged in execution of works contracts in addition to the sales. It is further averred therein that the request to issue C forms was not considered since there was no practice of issuing C form to the contractors as they are not paying tax on works contracts. It appears the definite stand taken by the respondents for not issuing the C forms and delivery notes is that the petitioner-company is engaged in execution of works contracts and it has not paid tax for the previous year or even if there is payment it is nominal. On the other hand, the counsel for the petitioner points out that the company is a registered dealer under the provisions of the Kerala General Sales tax Act, 1963 and the Central Sales tax Act, 1956 and hence it is entitled to get the delivery notes and C forms under the provisions of the said Acts.

4. In the premise of the rival contentions referred to above, the question that falls for decision is whether a contractor who is executing works contract is a dealer entitled to receive the 'delivery notes' and 'C forms' and if so, whether the issue of such documents can be withheld on the ground that he is not paying sales tax in respect of the turnover involved in the works contract for the previous years.

5. By the Constitution (46th Amendment) Act, 1982, Art.366 of the Constitution which deals with definitions has been amended inserting a new clause (29-a ). Clause (29-a ) states that the exp