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TMI Blog1961 (11) TMI 55X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Sales Tax Act, 1957, intends to levy sales tax on sales of bullion effected by them not at the rate prescribed by the seventy-fourth entry in the Second Schedule to the Act, as provided by section 5(3)(a) of the Act but under section 5(1) as if none of the Schedules to the Act prescribes the rate at which sales tax is payable in respect of sales of bullion effected by the petitioners. The petitioners admittedly buy what is described as mint gold from the Bombay mint, and to every eleven parts of gold, they add one part of copper, and make it into a compound and then sell that compound as sovereign gold. It appears that sovereign gold by which name they call the compound they so prepare is used by the petitioners not only for being sold in l ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cent. of the turnover under section 5(1). It will be seen from the notice issued by the Commercial Tax Officer to the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 810 of 1961 on 4th July, 1957, in which he proposed to charge sales tax at 2 per cent. of the turnover, that he was influenced in coming to that decision by a pronouncement of their Lordships of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Sri Akhrai Parakh v. The State of Andhra Pradesh[1960] 11 S.T.C. 483. Section 6 of the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act, 1950, the interpretation of which arose for decision in that case, contained the expression "gold or silver bullion". Their Lordships expressed the view that that expression meant only pure gold or silver and did not take gold or silver mixed with cop ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to us they do for the purpose of making that gold which they purchase from the mint fit for making jewellery, does the compound so prepared by the petitioners by the addition to the gold purchased from the mint a small percentage of a baser metal, lose the characteristic of bullion, and gets transformed into something other than bullion? I do not find, if I may so with the greatest respect to their Lordships of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, any justification for taking the view that the expression bullion necessarily means pure gold or silver. It is true that pure gold and pure silver, as can be seen from the dictionaries, are also bullion, but it will be seen from the meanings given in the various dictionaries, that the only meaning of b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... that even an alloyage of precious metal with copper is technically known as bullion. It is, I think, clear that the expression bullion cannot be given and does not possess any scientific meaning and the only meaning which we can give to it is either the meaning which is ordinarily given to it or the technical meaning which is given to it by traders. If the real meaning of bullion is that it is gold or silver in the mass unless it can be said that the commodity sold by the petitioners in these cases is not gold but something else it would be impossible for any one to suggest that what they sell is not bullion. It is, I think, incontestable, that if what the petitioners sell can be called gold, what they sell is bullion, since the substance ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Kingdom, I fail to understand why the compound which is sold in these cases by the petitioners, which contains 91.66 recurring percentage of gold and 8.33 recurring percentage of copper, the composition of which is almost the same as the composition of the gold from which the coin minted in the United Kingdom is made, should not also be called gold. It is common knowledge that anyone who goes to the market to buy gold does not intend to buy pure gold unless he requires pure and unalloyed gold for any particular or special purpose. If a person goes to a jeweller and purchases jewellery manufactured out of gold, he does not expect or desire to purchase jewellery manufactured out of pure gold, it being obvious that no jewellery can be manufact ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ply of bullion, it follows that sovereign gold sold by these petitioners, which consists of a slightly larger percentage of gold and a slightly smaller percentage of copper, is also regarded in commercial circles, for the purpose of trade, as bullion gold. In my opinion, whether we give to the expression "bullion" the popular meaning or the meaning given to it in trade that expression means not only pure gold or silver but also an alloy of gold or silver with such small percentage of some other metal as does not take away from it, the character of bullion. If I may say so with great respect, the view taken by their Lordships of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that bullion always means pure gold or pure silver does not rest upon a correct inte ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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