JAGADISAN, J.

The petitioner is a firm of dealers carrying on business in "pump sets" machinery at Madras. They were assessed by the Joint Commercial Tax Officer, Harbour I, on the net turnover of Rs. 1, 02, 377, under the Central Sales Tax Act, for the year 1959-60. Of this turnover, Rs. 62, 342 was held liable to tax at the rate of 1 per cent. and Rs. 40, 035 to tax at the rate of seven per cent. They preferred an appeal before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Madras, claiming that of the turnover of Rs. 40, 035, Rs. 34, 215 should be taxed only at the rate of one per cent. The Joint Commercial Tax Officer had levied the tax at the rate of seven per cent., as the petitioner did not file the original C Form as required by the Act and the rules framed thereunder in respect of a few transactions, and as the C Forms filed in respect of a few transactions were not duly and properly filled up. The petitioner produced certain letters before the appellate authority alleged to have been written from non-resident buyers outside the State to whom goods were sold, but the appellate authority declined to act upon them. The petitioners appeal was dismissed. They filed a further appeal before the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Madras, and they reiterated their claim that the turnover relating to the sum of Rs. 34, 215 should suffer tax only at the rate of one per cent. The Tribunal noted a mistake in regard to one transaction in respect of which the actual turnover was only Rs. 1, 640 though the petitioner claimed it to be for a sum of Rs. 1, 650. The Tribunal acted upon the evidence produced by the petitioner and took the view that the claim for the levy of tax at concessional rate was irresistible. The petitioner was therefore granted relief on a turnover of Rs. 34, 205 which was to be assessed at one per cent. instead of seven per cent. This revision petition has been preferred by the State challenging the correctness of the said order of the Tribunal.The following tabular statement extracted from the order of the Tribunal gives the particulars of the turnover and the reason for taxation at the enhanced rate of seven per cent.

------------ Invoice No. and date Turnover Reason for taxing at enhanced rate

1. 1545 dated 3-4-59 Rs. 1, 650 No C Form filed

2. 1549 " 21-4-59 " 1, 440 Do.

3. 1553 " 4-6-59 " 7, 750 Purpose not marked.

4. 1565 " 6-9-59 " 350 Date of registration not marked.

5. 1568 " 10-11-59 " 1, 000 Purpose not marked.

6. 1569 " 18-11-59 " 400 Purpose not marked and registration date not found.

7. 1574 " 3-2-60 " 6, 750 Purpose not marked.

8. 1575 " 12-2-60 " 7, 000 Do.

9. 1577 " 17-3-60 " 7, 000 Do.

10. 1578 " 18-3-60 " 875 Do.

In regard to S. Nos. 1 and 2, the petitioner did not file the prescribed C Forms before the assessing authority. It is alleged on their behalf that the C Forms were misplaced and could not be traced in time to enable them to file them before the assessing authority at the proper time. In respect of S. No. 2 the original C Form does not contain the date of registration of the buyer. The duplicate C Form however shows that the date of registration was 18th July, 1959, though the sale was effected on 21st April, 1959. The concessional rate of taxation at the rate of one per cent. is provided for under section 8(1) of the Central Sales Tax Act. Section 8(4) of the Act provides that section 8, sub-section (1), shall not apply to any sale in the course of inter-State trade or commerce unless the dealer selling the goods furnishes to the prescribed authority in the prescribed manner a declaration duly filled and signed by the registered dealer, to whom the goods are sold containing the prescribed particulars in a prescribed form obtained from the prescribed authority. The prescribed form is Form C under the Central Sales Tax (Registration and Turnover) Rules. Rule 10 of the Central Sales Tax (Madras) Rules, 1957, provides that every registered dealer who wishes to purchase goods from another such dealer on payment of tax at the rate applicable under the Act to sales of goods by one registered dealer to another, shall obtain from the assessing authority blank declaration forms prescribed (C Forms) for furnishing it to the selling dealer. Before furnishing the declaration to the selling dealer the purchasing dealer or any responsible person authorised by him in this behalf shall fill in all the required particulars in the form, and shall also affix his usual signature in the space provided for in the form for this purpose. Rule 5 of the Central Sales Tax (Madras) Rules provides that every dealer registered under section 7 of the Act shall submit a return of his transactions in the course of inter-State trade or commerce in Form No. 1, together with the connected declaration form (C Form) so as to reach the assessing authority on or before the 25th of each month showing the turnover for the preceding month, and the amount or amounts collected by way of tax together with a chalan or crossed cheque in favour of the assessing authority for the payment of the tax due thereon under the Act. Rule 10(2) provides that a registered dealer who claims to have made a sale to another registered dealer shall in respect of such claim attach to his return in Form No. 1, the portion marked "original" of the declaration received by him from the purchasing dealer (C Form). The selling dealer may instead of attaching the form of declaration to the return in Form 1 keep it in his custody subject to the condition that he maintains a register in Form 9 showing serially and chronologically the receipt of the forms of declaration from the purchasing dealers and submit all the forms of declaration relating to the year along with the last return in Form 1 due for that year. The benefit of one per cent. under section 8(1) of the Act is conditional upon the assessee producing and furnishing the prescribed declaration C Form, in the prescribed manner. The language of section 8(4) is express, explicit and mandatory as the words used are :

"The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply to any sale ...... unless the dealer selling the goods furnishes to the prescribed authority in the prescribed manner a declaration dully filled and signed by the registered dealer." *

There is no scope, in view of the specific rules already referred to, for the assessee to claim the benefit of section 8(1) of the Act by producing the C Forms before the appellate authority after an assessment order against him. The Act does not confer any power upon the appellate authority to receive C Forms produced before him for the first time by the assessee by condoning the failure on the part of the assessee to produce them before the assessing authority. Non-observance of the rules by the assessee in the matter of production of the C Forms will inevitably deprive the assessee of the benefit of favourable taxation under section 8(1) of the Act. We have already taken this view in our decision in T.C. No. 89 of 1961. (Since reported as Deputy Commissioner (Commercial Taxes), Coimbatore Division v. Parekutti Hajee Sons Mr. C. S. Chandrasekhara Sastry, learned counsel for the respondent, urged for a reconsideration of our former decision and referred us to rule 5, clause (4), of the Central Sales Tax (Madras) Rules, 1957. The rule reads as follows :

"If no return is submitted in respect of any month before the 25th day of the succeeding month or if the return is submitted without a chalan or a crossed cheque for the full amount of tax payable or if the return submitted appears to be incorrect or incomplete, the assessing authority shall after making such enquiry as he considers necessary and after giving the dealer an opportunity of proving the correctness and completeness of the return where one has been submitted, determine the turnover to the best of his judgment and provisionally assess the tax or taxes payable for the month and shall serve upon the dealer a notice in Form 2 and the dealer shall pay the sum demanded at the time and in the manner specified in the notice." *

The argument of the learned counsel for the respondent is that a return unaccompanied by the C Form is only an incomplete return and the assessing authority should give the assessee an opportunity of proving the completeness of the return and that really means that C Forms can be produced subsequent to the filing of the return, subject to the discretion of the assessing authority to receive them or not. We are unable to see how the return in Form 1 can be said to be incomplete because of the absence of C Form. The non-submission of C Form will have the consequence of the assessee not obtaining the benefit of section 8(1) but cannot in any way vitiate the return or render it incomplete or defective. There is no substance in this contention, and we are clearly of opinion that the view expressed by us in our decision in T.C. No. 89 of 1961 is correct and needs no modification or change.The turnover of Rs. 1, 640 (S. No. 1) in the tabular column and Rs. 1, 440 (S. No. 2) should therefore fall not under section 8(1) of the Act, but under section 8(2) of the Act, and they should suffer the tax at the rate of seven per cent.

We shall now deal with S. Nos. 3 and 5 to 10. In respect of these sale transactions, the C Forms produced are alleged to be defective and not in conformity with the rule as the purpose of the sale, whether it was for re-sale or whether it was for use in manufacturing or processing goods for sale, or whether it was for use in mining or in generation and distribution of power, was not specifically stated. The C Form contains all those purposes and no "purpose" is struck out in the form and the defect pointed out is that the non-resident buyer should specify the purpose for which he bought and should not have left that "purpose" in doubt by keeping all the "purposes" set out in the form intact without scoring out the "purposes" for which he did not buy.

It will now be convenient to refer to the provisions of the Act. Section 8(1) of the Act provides that,

"Every dealer, who in the course of inter-State trade or commerce (a) sells to the Government any goods; or (b) sells to a registered dealer other than the Government goods of the description referred to in sub-section (3) shall be liable to pay tax under this Act, which shall be one per cent., of his turnover." *

The Act deals with two categories of goods, the "declared goods" and "goods other than declared goods". Declared goods are defined as goods declared under section 14 to be of special importance in inter-State trade or commerce. Section 14 gives the following list of ten goods as of special importance : coal, cotton, hides and skins, iron and steel, jute, oil seeds, rayon or artificial silk fabrics, sugar, tobacco and woollen fabrics. As section 8(1) confers a benefit of the concessional levy of one per cent. in respect of sales of the description mentioned in sub-section (3), we shall refer to section 8(3) and that reads :

"The goods referred to in clause (b) of sub-section (1) - (a) in the case of declared goods are goods of the class or classes specified in the certificate of registration of the registered dealer purchasing the goods as being intended for resale by him;

(b) in the case of goods other than declared goods are goods of the class or classes specified in the certificate of registration of the registered dealer purchasing the goods as being intended for resale by him or subject to any rules made by the Central Government in this behalf, for use by him in the manufacture or processing of goods for sale or in mining or in the generation or distribution of electricity or any other form of power; ........" *

The goods forming the subject-matter of the sale in the instant case are not declared goods within the meaning of the Act. In regard to such goods the concessional levy at the rate of one per cent. under section 8(1) can be obtained by a registered dealer if the goods purchased are intended for resale by the buyer, or for use by him in the manufacturing or processing of goods for sale or in mining or in the generation or distribution of electricity or in any other form of power. Rule 13 of the Central Sales Tax (Registration and Turnover) Rules of 1957 provides that the goods referred to in clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 8 which a registered dealer may purchase shall be goods intended for use by him as raw materials, processing materials, machinery, plant, equipment, tools, stores, spare parts, accessories, fuel or lubricants in the manufacture or processing of goods for sale or in mining or in the generation and distribution of electricity or any other form of power.

In the case of "non-declared goods" the levy of one per cent. under section 8(1) will be attracted if the purchaser intended the goods for any one or more than one of the following purposes : (1) resale; (2) use in the manufacture or processing of goods for sale; (3) mining; (4) generation or distribution of electricity or any other form of power. The statute does not restrict the applicability of section 8(1) to a sale transaction in a case where the purpose is only one of the four purposes set out; so long as the purchaser intends the purchase of the goods for any or all of the purposes provided for under section 8(3)(b) of the Act, the benefit of section 8(1) levy can be fully availed of. We are unable to see any defect or irregularity in the C Forms produced by the petitioner in regard to S. Nos. 3 and 5 to 10 merely because no column relating to the "purposes" is struck out but all the columns are left intact. The C Form produced is strictly and literally in compliance with the form prescribed under the rules. A proper interpretation of the C Forms made available to the petitioner would be to hold that the non-resident buyer intended the purchase for all the purposes set out in the form. Yet the forms do not cease to be in accord with the rules or in conformity with the prescribed form. It is wholly unnecessary for the assessing authority to investigate the truth or otherwise of the manifest representation made by the non-resident buyer by his keeping all the purposes set out in the form without deleting any one or more of them. The petitioner has no manner of control over the non-resident buyer as to compel him to be more specific than what he has chosen to do by sending the C Forms in the manner in which he did. Any false representation by the non-resident buyer who has signed the C Forms will certainly expose him to grave consequences for breach of statutory provisions, but the forms as such cannot be condemned and put aside to defeat the sellers right and claim of taxation under section 8(1) of the Act. We are of opinion that in regard to S. Nos. 3 and 5 to 10, the aggregate turnover of Rs. 30, 775 should be taxed under section 8(1) at the rate of one per cent. To this extent the decision of the Tribunal is correct.What remains is only S. No. 4 relating to a turnover of Rs. 350 which has been subjected to tax at the rate of 7 per cent. on the ground that the C Form does not mention the date of registration. The C Form is admittedly lacking in a material particular by reason of this omission. This should therefore attract tax only at the rate of 7 per cent. under section 8(2) of the Act.

In the result, the decision of the Tribunal is confirmed in regard to S. Nos. 3 and 5 to 10 and set aside in regard to S. Nos. 1, 2 and 4. The revision petition is partly allowed. There will be no order as to costs.

Petition partly allowed.