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TMI Blog1958 (4) TMI 48X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... er to these provisions at this stage. Section 2(b) of the Act defines "contract" as including "any agreement for carrying out for cash or deferred payment or other valuable consideration the construction, fitting out, improvement or repair of any building, road, bridge or other immovable property or the installation or repair of any machinery affixed to a building or other immovable property". Section 2(c) of the Act defines "dealer" as including a person who carries on the business of supplying goods. In section 2(d), "goods" are defined as including "all materials, articles and commodities whether or not to be used in the construction, fitting out, improvement or repair of immovable property". Section 2(g) defines "sale" as follows: "'Sale' with all its grammatical variations and cognate expressions means any transfer of property in goods for cash or deferred payment or other valuable consideration, including a transfer of property in goods made in course of the execution of a contract, but does not include a mortgage, hypothecation, charge or pledge; and the word 'purchase' shall be construed accordingly." Section 2(h) defines "sale price" as incl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he Government dated September 18, 1950, withdrawing that exemption was unconstitutional and void. To appreciate this contention, it is necessary to refer to section 6 of the Act, which is as follows: "6. (1) No tax shall be payable under this Act on the sale of goods specified in the second column of Schedule II, subject to the conditions and exceptions, if any, set out in the corresponding entry in the third column thereof. (2) The State Government may, after giving by notification not less than one month's notice of their intention so to do, by a notification after the expiry of the period of notice mentioned in the first notification amend either Schedule, and thereupon such Schedule shall be deemed to be amended accordingly." Item 33 in Schedule II as originally enacted was "Goods sold by the Crown". This was amended by Act No. XVI of 1949 by substituting for the above words "Goods sold to or by the Crown". By an Adaptation Order of 1950, the words "State Government" were substituted for "Crown", and Item 33 became "Goods sold to or by the State Government". In exercise of the power conferred by section 6(2) of the Act, the State issued a notificatio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tute and was valid. in the result, the impugned provisions of the Act were held to be valid except as to the definition of "price" in section 2(h)(ii) and rule 4 of the Sales Tax Rules, 1947. It is against this judgment that the above appeals have been preferred on a certificate granted by the High Court under Article 132(1) of the Constitution. Two contentions have been urged in support of the appeals: (1) that the Provincial Legislature has no authority in exercise of its power under Entry 48 to impose a tax on the supply of materials in works contracts, as such supply cannot be said to be a sale of those materials within that entry; and (2) that the notification dated September 18, 1950, is bad as being an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. As regards the first contention, the question is now concluded by the decision of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 210 of 1956(1), in which it has been held that the expression "sale of goods" in Entry 48 has the same meaning which it has in the Sale of Goods Act, 1930, that in a building contract there is no sale of materials as such, and that it is therefore ultra vires the powers of the Provincial Legislatu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... er to execute a law, it was argued, could be delegated to the executive, the power to make it must be exercised by the Legislature itself, and reliance was placed on the observations in Hampton JR & Co. v. United States 276 U.S. 394; 72 L. Ed. 624 at 629., Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan 293 U.S. 388; 79 L. Ed. 446 at 458. and Schechter v. United States 295 U.S. 495; 79 L. Ed. 1570., as supporting this position. It was also contended that the grant of a power to an outside authority to repeal or modify a provision in a statute passed by the Legislature was unconstitutional, and that, in consequence, the impugned notification was bad in that, in reversal of the policy laid down by the Legislature in Act No. XVI of 1949 that sales to Government should be excluded from the operation of the Act, it withdrew the exemption which had been granted there- under. And the observations in In re The Delhi Laws Act, 1912, etc. [1951] S.C.R. 747 at 787, 982, 984., and the decision in Rajnarain Singh v. The Chairman, Patna Administra- tion Committee, Patna and Another[1955] 1 S.C.R. 290., were strongly relied on as establishing this contention. Mr. N.C. Chatterjee particularly relied on the following ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ales by successive dealers the tax should be levied, and pursuant thereto, rules 4 and 16 had provided that it was the purchaser who was liable to pay the tax in respect of sales of hides and skins. The validity of the rules was attacked on the ground that it was only the Legislature that was competent to decide who shall be taxed, and that the determination of that question by the rule-making authorities was ultra vires. The Madras High Court rejected this contention, and held on a review of the authorities that the delegation of authority under section 5(vi) was within permissible constitutional limits. In Hampton JR. & Co. v. United States 276 U.S. 394; 72 L. Ed. 624., which was cited on behalf of the appellant, the question arose whether section 315(b) of the Tariff Act, 1922, under which the President had been empowered to make such increases and decreases in the rates of duty as were found necessary for carrying out the policies declared in the statute was an unconstitutional delegation, and the decision was that such delegation was not unconstitutional. We are therefore of the opinion that the power conferred on the State Government by section 6(2) to amend the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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