Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax (Law), Board of Revenue (Taxes) vs Hotel Liberty

K.S. Paripoornan, J.—The Revenue is the revision petitioner. The respondent, a hotelier, is an assessee under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act. The question involved is the assessability to tax u/s 5A of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act regarding the turnover of firewood and charcoal used by the respondent-assessee for preparing meals in the hotel. The Appellate Tribunal held that firewood and charcoal are not ingredients of the finished goods. They are commodities which are not used for the creation of goods and so the turnover is not taxable u/s 5A(1)(a) of the Act. The Revenue has come up in revision.

We heard counsel for the Revenue. The respondent-assessee is not represented before us. It is admitted that the firewood and charcoal were used as fuel for preparation of food. There is no material to show that they have been used as a raw material in the manufacture of any goods for sale by the respondent-assessee. On these premises, and in the light of the decision of this Court in Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Thomas Stephen and Co. Ltd. (1987) 1 KLT 161, we hold that the said goods-firewood and charcoal-have not been used in the manufacture of any goods for sale, but only as an aid in the manufacture of goods by the assessee and so the turnover relating to those items cannot be brought to tax u/s 5A(1)(a) of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act. The decision of the Appellate Tribunal is right. There is no error of law in the order of the Appellate Tribunal.

There is no merit in this revision. It is dismissed.