Apex Court defines market value

[Vivek Jalan]

Where a person imposes stringent conditions to sell goods in the open market, making it unviable for third party consumers to purchase such goods and thus virtually forces a sale to itself, such a sale price cannot be called ‘market price’. In order to determine the market price of any goods or services, open market conditions must exist i.e. there must be willingness on the part of the buyer to purchase and the seller to sell the goods. In such a situation, the price determined by the market forces of demand and supply is the market price of such goods. However, in case of any transaction of purchase and sale taking place on account of certain obligations on the part of either side affecting the determination of the price of the goods, such a price cannot be said to be the market price.

“Market value” is an expression which denotes the price of a good arrived at between a buyer and a seller in the open market i.e., where the transaction takes place in the normal course of trading. In the case of COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX VERSUS M/S JINDAL STEEL & POWER LIMITED THROUGH ITS MANAGING DIRECTOR [2023 (12) TMI 417 - SUPREME COURT], it was held that determination of tariff between the assesse and the State Electricity Board cannot be said to be an exercise between a buyer and a seller in a competitive environment or in the ordinary course of trade and business i.e., in the open market. Such a price cannot be said to be the price which is determined in the normal course of trade and competition. Market value of the power supplied by the assesse to its industrial units should be computed by considering the rate at which the State Electricity Board supplied power to the consumers in the open market and not comparing it with the rate of power when sold to a supplier i.e., sold by the assesse to the State Electricity Board as this was not the rate at which an industrial consumer could have purchased power in the open market.