HC dismisses tax revision petition

 Hyderabad: A two-judge bench of the Telangana High Court dismissed a tax revision filed by Kala Jyoti Process Pvt. Ltd. challenging the orders of the sales tax appellate tribunal. The bench was called upon to deal with the question of whether the petitioner would get tax exemption on turnover of books and periodicals and whether or not the sales tax tribunal erred in holding that the nature of the job undertaken by the petitioner would fall under the purview of “works contract”. The petitioner had sought exemption under the APGST Act, 1957.

The bench of Justice P. Sam Koshy and Justice Lakshmi Narayan Alisetty dealt with the question as framed by the petitioner as there was a marked distinction so far as a contract for sale and "contract for work and labour". A contract of sale is a contract whose main object is the transfer of the property and delivery of the chattel to the buyer. Whereas the main object of the work undertaken by the payee is not the transfer of a chattel qua chattel, the contract is one for work and labour. The bench found that the petitioner is not entitled to sell the textbooks or magazines and is required to deliver to the customer the quantity of the books and magazines ordered for. The bench noticed that it is the responsibility of the petitioner to use the required paper for the purpose of printing. Neither the printed material nor the raw material paper can be separated, nor can the aforesaid two materials be sold independently at the first instance and neither can the same can be sold by the petitioner in any manner. They can be sold only by the publisher who gets the materials printed. The bench pointed out that since the transaction between the printer and the publisher was not in the nature of sale, the exemption cannot be granted. It  stated that if the contention of counsel for the petitioner is to be accepted, then there shall be no distinction between the printing of textbooks, magazines and periodicals and the printing works of letter heads, bill books, account books  and leaflets.

Man fined Rs 10k as costs for silence on earlier  petition

Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy of the Telangana High Court ordered a petitioner to pay Rs 10,000 to the Telangana High Court Advocates Association as costs for his failure to disclose that he had filed an earlier writ petition. The judge was dealing with a writ petition filed by Vemula Biksham challenging the action of the Arvapalle station house officer of Suryapet district in not providing police aid for his agricultural land of about five acres. The petitioner claiming ownership of the land filed his suit against Vemula Venkanna and another. He obtained a decree against them from interfering with his possession of the land. He then moved the High Court seeking police protection. The High Court had earlier dismissed the writ petition observing that if it directed the police to grant protection for executing the decree, in case there is any other person/third party in possession of the said property the police will not be able to decide the rights of the third parties. The court said it could not go into the issue of civil disputes among the parties and the appropriate remedy for the petitioner is to file an application under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). The petitioner made a representation to the police and again filed a writ petition without mentioning that he had unsuccessfully sought police protection earlier. The Judge said that the procedure adopted by the petitioner in suppressing the dismissal of the earlier writ petition amounted to abuse of the process of law.

Can’t alter date of birth of employees, RTC told

Justice J. Sreenivas Rao of the Telangana High Court set aside an order of the TSRTC refusing to deal with the correction of the date of birth of a retired bus driver. The judge found that the order made in November amounted to altering the date of birth of the petitioner, in the absence of notice, inquiry or any order, at the fag-end of his service solely based upon a medical certificate from November 1989, which was a clear violation of the principles of natural justice and contrary to the law. The judge allowed a writ petition filed by A. Yadigiri questioning an order made by the depot manager of Medak retiring the petitioner from service from November 2015. His date of birth shown at the time of appointment was April 1959. He was scheduled to retire in April 2017. Though the petitioner submitted his date of birth certificate issued by the Zilla Parishad High School, the corporation, without considering it, retired him from service prematurely on the alleged grounds that in the medical certificate of November 1987, as issued by the medical officer of the corporation’s hospital in Tarnaka, the age was mentioned as 30 years as on November 1987 based on which the petitioner was deemed to have been retired from November 2015. Faulting the approach of the TSRTC, Justice Sreenivas Rao pointed out that the petitioner has discharged more than 28 years of service, during which time the corporation had not initiated proceedings nor had conducted any inquiry or passed any order against the petitioner, even after submission of the certificates issued by the concerned school and gram panchayat in 2004, 2011 and 2016. The judge said, “It is a settled principle of law that the employee is not entitled to raise the age dispute nor seek correction of the date of birth at the fag-end of the service. The said principle is also applicable to the employer.”