Case: Commercial Taxes Officer, Circle-B, Bharatpur Vs. Bhagat Singh

2. The Respondent had purchased a truck/trailer (hereinafter referred to as said vehicle) from one M/s Ashok Auto Sales Ltd of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, for consideration of Rs. 16,20,000/- vide Invoice No. C1273/09 dated 26-12-2009. The said vehicle was registered in Bharatpur in Rajasthan and given the Registration No. RJ-05-GA-5299.3. On 11th July 2012, that is, almost three years after the date of purchase of the said vehicle, summons were issued to the Respondent under sections 3, 6 and 7 of the Rajasthan Tax on Entry of Motor Vehicle into Local Areas Act 1988, hereinafter referred to as the Entry Tax Act of 1988.4. It appears that the Respondent failed to appear pursuant to the summons, whereupon an Assessment Order dated 9-10-2012 was passed by the Assistant Commissioner Commercial Taxes Department, Circle - B, Bharatpur, levying on the Respondent, tax of Rs. 2,26,800/-, that is, 14% of the purchase value under sections 3, 6 and 7 of the Entry Tax Act of 1988, alongwith penalty of Rs. 1,000/-and interest of Rs. 72,576/-, the total demand being Rs. 3,00,376/-.5. Being aggrieved, the Respondent filed an appeal before the Appellate Authority, Commercial Tax Department, Bharatpur being Appeal No. 134/RET/2016 - 17/A.A./Bharatpur, inter alia, contending that (i) the summons issued for 9-10-2012 was received by the Respondent after that date, after which no further notice was issued and (ii) the Assessment Order was barred by limitation, the same having been passed beyond the period of 2 years from the date of purchase of the said vehicle. Even otherwise, the liability of the Respondent to Entry Tax in respect of the said vehicle was disputed.6. By an order dated 4-1-2017, the Appellate Authority allowed the appeal of the said Respondent and set aside the Assessment Order impugned, holding that the Respondent was a Casual Trader and, therefore, the limitation for passing an Assessment Order against him was only 2 years from the date of the transaction.7. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid Order dated 4-1-2017 passed by the Appellate Authority in Appeal No. 134/RET/2016-17/A.A./Bharatpur, the petitioner filed Appeal No. 1132/2017/Bharatpur before the Rajasthan Tax Board. The said appeal was rejected by the Rajasthan Tax Board, by a judgment and order dated 8-10-2018.8. The petitioner filed a revision petition in the High Court being S.B. Sales Tax Revision/Reference No. 165/2019, against the aforesaid order dated 8-10-2018 of the Rajasthan Tax Board, which has been dismissed by the order dated 9-7-2020 of the High Court, impugned in this Special Leave Petition.

Court's reasoning:
Casual Trader envisages occasional transactions of business involving buying and selling of goods. The plurality of transactions is a condition precedent for treating a trader as a Casual Trader. It is contended that there was only a single transaction in this case. The Respondent could not, therefore, be held a Casual Trader.15. The Appellate Authority, the Rajasthan Tax Board and the High Court have concurred in arriving at the finding that the assessment of the Respondent was barred by limitation as the Respondent was a Casual Trader. A perusal of the definition of Casual Trader makes it amply clear that a person with occasional transactions of buying/selling are to be treated as casual traders, for whom a shorter time limit for assessment has been imposed under section 10B(iii) read with Section 10A of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act 1954. The Legislature could not, possibly, have intended that a person making 2 or 3 transactions should be treated as a Casual Trader, but a person making only one transaction should be treated at par with regular traders.16. It is well settled that in construing a statutory provision, words in the singular are to include the plural and vice versa, unless repugnant to the context in which the expression has been used, as provided in Section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 and provisions identical thereto in State enactments pertaining to General Clauses.17. Relying on Section 13(b) of the Bombay General Clauses Act, 1904, which states that words in the singular shall include the plural, and vice versa, this Court has held that the expression any bodies or persons in Section 43-A(1)(b) of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, will include a singular person, in the same way as the expression leases in the provision will include a single lease. (Govinda Bala Patil v. Ganpati Ramchandra Naikwade [2013] 5 SCC 644)18. The Court must interpret a statute in a manner which is just, reasonable and sensible. If the grammatical construction leads to some absurdity or some repugnancy or inconsistency with the legislative intent, as may be deduced by reading the provisions of the statute as a whole, the grammatical construction may be departed from to avoid anomaly, absurdity or inconsistency. To quote Venkatarama Aiyar, J. in Tirath Singh v. Bachittar Singh AIR 1955 SC 830  (at 833), where the language of a statute, in its ordinary meaning and grammatical construction, leads to a manifest contradiction of the apparent purpose of the enactment, or to some inconvenience or absurdity, hardship or injustice, presumably not intended, a construction may be put upon it which modifies the meaning of the words, and even the structure of the sentence. This view has been reiterated by this Court.19. We, therefore, find no grounds to interfere with judgment and order impugned, under Article 136 of the Constitution of India in a catena of subsequent decisions.