In Brief
The appellant, a timber trader, imported goods into India and claimed the sales to end-buyers were high seas sales exempt from Central Sales Tax under Section 5(2) of the CST Act. The appellant alleged it had only acted as agent, transferring the bill of lading while goods were on high seas. The Supreme Court held that the claimed exemption was wrongly granted. Since the appellant filed bills of entry in its own name, was assessed to customs duty, and its name appeared in the Import General Manifest without mention of end-buyers, the appellant was the true importer. The high seas sales were never executed in fact. Once goods were cleared for home consumption, any subsequent sale to end-buyers in other States constituted inter-State sales taxable under the CST Act. The Court upheld the High Court's dismissal of the writ petitions."
The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.