Supplies of calendars by a liaison office of a company situated outside the State to its customers in Tamil Nadu constitute sale exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act.

ABDUL HADI, J.

The Revenue has preferred this revision against the order dated August 11, 1981 of the Tamil Nadu Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Second Additional Bench, Madras, in Tribunal Appeal No. 208 of 1981, setting aside the assessment made on the respondent-assessee, which was confirmed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, in relation to the assessment year 1973-74.

2. The assessee-respondent is Parle Products (P) Limited, 134, Thambu Chetty Street, Madras. It is not in dispute that the assessee's abovesaid office at Madras is a liaison office. Admittedly, Parle Products (Private) Limited carried on the business of manufacture and sale of Parle biscuits and confectioneries from its head office situated in Maharashtra and it sold the biscuits and confectioneries to several dealers, some of them were in the State of Tamil Nadu also. But, the question in the present case is not regarding those sales. On the other hand, the question is regarding the supplies of calendars to those dealers in Tamil Nadu, through the abovesaid liaison office (assessee) and at the instruction of the abovesaid head office at Bombay of Parle Products (Private) Limited. The actual question is whether those suppliers are sales exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act for the assessment year 1973-74.

3. By the original common assessment order dated December 7, 1979 in relation to five assessment years, that is, 1973-74 to 1977-78 in respect of such supplies of calendars made in those assessment years, the assessing officer treated those supplies as sales exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act and assessed them to tax. But the Appellate Assistant Commissioner by his common order dated March 14, 1980, set aside the assessments for those five years and remanded the cases back to the assessing officer for fresh assessment. Accordingly, a fresh common assessment order was passed by the assessing officer by his order dated June 16, 1980 in respect of those five years, holding once again that the abovesaid supplies of calendars were sales exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act. The said assessments were also subsequently confirmed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner by his common order dated October 27, 1980.

4. But, in the second appeal filed by the assessee before the Tribunal, the Tribunal by its common order dated August 11, 1981, has set aside the abovesaid assessment for the abovesaid five years, holding that those supplies were not sales. The Tribunal has even held that the assessee was not "doing business of sales of calendars in Tamil Nadu". It has also held that the assessee is not a dealer, within Tamil Nadu and that the incidental circulation of calendars in Tamil Nadu "cannot be taken as doing any business", making the assessee, a dealer "within Tamil Nadu".

5. As against this common order of the Tribunal in Tribunal Appeal Nos. 150, 151, 152, 184 and 208 of 1981, the Revenue has preferred this revision only with reference to one assessment year involved in T.A. No. 208 of 1981. In this revision petition, the said assessment year is stated to be 1973-74. Further, in the revision petition, all that is stated is, "the order of the Tribunal in so far as it related to the finding that the appellants are not a dealer within the State or Tamil Nadu is not correct and it requires revision on the following among other grounds". So, it appears the Revenue is only aggrieved by the finding of the Tribunal that the assessee is "not a dealer within the State of Tamil Nadu". However, on reading the questions of law raised for decision by this Court, as set out in the revision petition, it appears that the Revenue is aggrieved even with regard to the other findings of the Tribunal and with regard to the final conclusion reached by the Tribunal, holding that the abovesaid supplies, are not exigible to tax under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act. So, in this revision, we propose to deal