Aajkaal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. and anr. Vs. Commercial Tax Officer, Manicktola Charge and ors. - Court Judgment

Prabir Kumar Majumdar, J.

1. This application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order dated 22nd July, 1988, passed by the Commercial Tax Officer, Manicktola charge, by which the Commercial Tax Officer, Manicktola charge, has held that the petitioners' sports magazine 'Khela' is not a newspaper for the purpose of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'), and the petitioner No. 1 being the dealer is not entitled to the benefit of purchasing raw materials at a concessional rate on the strength of declaration in form XXIVA for use in the publication of 'Khela'.

2. The petitioner No. 1 is the printer and publisher of the newspaper 'Aajkaal' and also a dealer under the said Act as also the Central Sales Tax Act. It is the case of the petitioner No. 1 (hereinafter referred to as 'the company') that the business of the company is to manufacture or produce daily newspapers and periodicals and by virtue of registration certificate granted to the company under the relevant Sales Tax Act, the company for the purpose of manufacturing or producing newspapers and periodicals is entitled to purchase raw materials such as machineries and parts, accessories containing parts and newsprints for composing and also consumable stores as may be required in the manufacture of those newspapers and periodicals. It is claimed by the company that it is also entitled to purchase packing materials at concessional rate as prescribed from time to time under the Sales Tax Act.

3. The short point involved in this application is that if the said sports periodical 'Khela' is a newspaper within the meaning of the said Act, then the company would be entitled to have raw materials as referred to above at a concessional rate.

4. It was contended by the company before the Commercial Tax Officer, Manicktola charge, the respondent No. 1, that the definition of the 'newspaper' as given in the Press and Registration of Books Act is that it means any printed periodical work containing public news or comments on public news. It is also the contention of the company before respondent No. 1 that the said magazine 'Khela' has been registered as a newspaper with the Registrar of Newspapers of India under Registration No.37823/82.

5. It was also contended by the company that the said periodical 'Khela' had been treated as a newspaper and the respondent granted declaration forms to the petitioners for the purpose of purchase of goods for the manufacture or production of said periodical 'Khela' up to June, 1988.

6. It has also been contended on behalf of the company that definition in Section 2(b) of the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, reproduces the definition of 'newspaper' given in the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867. It is the contention of the petitioner that in order to be a newspaper it must contain news or comments on news and such news must be public. It is being claimed by the company that the said 'Khela' satisfied all such requirements and as such it is a newspaper and for manufacturing such newspaper, the petitioner is entitled to purchase raw materials at a concessional rate in terms of the provisions of the said Act and/or the relevant notifications issued thereunder.

7. It is a further case of the company that the said Act excludes newspapers and all types of periodicals from taxation under items 45 and 21 of the Schedule I to the said Act.

8. The Commercial Tax Officer, the respondent No. 1, however, refused to consider the said periodical 'Khela' as a newspaper, as according to him the said periodical 'Khela' is published in a book form and not in sheet form, although he admitted that 'Khela' publishes news of sports and games only. It is also the view of the respondent No. 1 that the said periodical 'Khela' was not taxable goods at any point of time under the said Act and as such the benefit of purchase at the concessional rate of tax on the strength of declaration in form XXIVA is applicable to the case of dealers manufacturing or publishing newspapers.

9. These are mainly the respective contentions of the parties with regard to the point involved in this writ application.

10. Mr. Gopal Chakraborty, Senior Advocate of this Court, appearing for the petitioner has submitted that there is no precise definition of 'newspaper' in the said Act. He contends that for the purpose of consideration whether a particular publication is a newspaper or not, reference should be made to other statutes which define newspaper and such definition may be borrowed for the purpose of considering whether a particular publication is a newspaper or not. It is his submission that it is an admitted position that newspapers and periodicals are exempted from taxation under the said Act. He also submits that it is true that after the amendment of item 21 from 1st June, 1987, the periodical is excluded from the definition of 'newspaper'. Mr. Chakraborty submits that this kind of sports weekly, namely, 'Khela' contains news and/or comments of news about sports and such news are made public. According to Mr. Chakraborty 'Khela' conforms to such definition of 'newspaper'.

11. In order to strengthen his argument that the said sports magazine 'Khela' is the newspaper both in common parlance as also according to the definition of the 'newspaper' as found in the said Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 and also the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, Mr. Chakraborty has cited several decisions of several High Courts as also the decision of the Supreme Court.

12. The first case, he has cited is a decision of the Orissa High Court in the case of P.S.V. Iyer v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, Orissa, reported in : AIR1960Ori221 . The Orissa High Court has observed that the main object of newspaper is to give information about recent events and the essential prerequisite of a periodical in order to make it a 'newspaper' is that it must contain mainly public news or comments on public news. In this case, the question before the Orissa High Court was whether the 'Cuttack Law Times' was a newspaper, and if so, was it entitled to exemption under the provisions of the Orissa Sales Tax Act. The Orissa High Court referred to the various Acts in order to find out the precise definition of 'newspaper'. It referred to the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, which defines 'newspaper' as newspaper meaning any printed periodical work connected with public news or comments on public news. It also referred to Section 2 of the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act, 1956, which defines newspapers as meaning any printed periodical containing public news or comments on public news. The Orissa High Court also referred to other statutes, namely, the Delivery of Books and Newspapers Act, 1956, the' Newspaper (Price and Page) Act, 1956 and lastly the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act which more or less provided same definition of 'newspaper'. Referring to the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, the High Court found that the newspapers mean any printed periodical work containing public news or comments on public news and included such other class of printed periodicals as may from time to time be notified in this behalf by the Central Government in the Official Gazette. The Orissa High Court ultimately referring to those definitions of 'newspaper' held that the 'Cuttack Law Times' was not a newspaper and as such no exemption would be available to such publication under the Orissa Sales Tax Act. The High Court held that in all those statutes the essential prerequisite of a periodical in order to make it a newspaper was that it must contain mainly public news or comments on the public news and the books containing authoritative reports for future reference could not be said to contain the news so as to become newspaper.

13. Mr. Chakraborty has also cited a recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of All India Reporter Karamchari Sangh v. All India Reporter Ltd., reported in : (1988)ILLJ551SC . The question that arose before the Supreme Court was whether the law reports, namely, All India Reporter, Criminal Law Journal, Labour and Industrial Cases, etc., were newspapers within the meaning of the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955. The Supreme Court has observed that it was significant that the expression 'newspaper' as defined in the said Act, namely, the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, included not merely 'public news' but also 'comments on public news'. The Supreme Court observed that publication of the recent judgment itself was sufficient to make law report a newspaper which may after some time cease to be a newspaper and become a book of reference. Relying on the said observation of the Supreme Court, Mr. Chakraborty has contended that this periodical 'Khela' included not merely public news regarding sports but also comments on such public news. Therefore, according to Mr. Chakraborty, the said periodical could safely be brought within the purview of the definition of 'newspaper' as appearing in various statutes referred to by the courts, namely, the Press and Registration of Books Act, the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act and other Acts as referred to by the Orissa High Court, in the decision reported in : AIR1960Ori221 (P.S.V. Iyer v. Commissioner of Sales Tax).

14. The Supreme Court also referred to the decision of the Orissa High Court in P.S.V. Iyer v. Commissioner of Sales Tax : AIR1960Ori221 and found it difficult to agree with the said decision as according to the Supreme Court, the High Court of Orissa omitted to take into consideration that information about recent decisions of Courts of record could be news in which the public was interested. It has also observed that the fact that a law report could be used as a reference book at a later stage was not sufficient to hold that the law report did not contain public news when it was received by the subscriber.

15. Mr. Chakraborty has also cited a decision of the Madras High Court in T.V. Ramnath v. Union of India, reported in 1975 Lab IC 488, in which the 'Madras Law Journal' was held to be a newspaper. The Supreme Court in the decision of All India Reporter Karamchari Sangh : (1988)ILLJ551SC , approved the said decision of the High Court of Madras.

16. Mr. Chakraborty has also referred to the Bombay High Court decision in Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Express Printing Press : AIR1983Bom190 , in which the Bombay High Court held that two publications by name of 'Joker' and 'Jobara' which contained predictions or forecasts of lucky numbers were not newspapers since those publications had nothing to do with any recent event which had taken place.

17. Mr. Chakraborty submits that in view of the definition of 'newspaper' finding place in other statutes, the said magazine 'Khela' although in the form of book published periodically, contained public news and also comments on public news and according to Mr. Chakraborty if law reports could be held as newspaper then there is no reason why periodicals like 'Khela' should not be treated as newspaper which indisputedly publishes news on sports and also comments on the sports news to which the public was interested.

18. Mr. S.N. Bose, counsel for the respondent, has supported the view taken by the respondent No. 1 in making the impugned order dated 22nd July, 1988. He has submitted that there is no specific and clear definition of 'newspaper' in the Act. It is his submission that in common parlance the people will take the newspaper which publishes daily news in the form of daily newspaper. According to Mr. Bose, when one talks of newspapers it comes to his mind the daily newspaper catering news on various topics and he would never take a periodical to be a newspaper as understood in common parlance. Mr. Bose has also reiterated what has been stated by the respondent No. 1 that for the purpose of interpreting taxing statutes it should be borne in mind that the primary object of such statutes was to raise revenue and for which purpose the statutes classify diverse products and the popular meaning attached to such product should be taken into account while interpreting such taxing statutes. Mr. Bose submits that no one would take any periodical including the said periodical 'Khela' as newspaper as the same does not cater the news of daily events and comments thereon.

19. Regarding the cases cited by Mr. Chakraborty, the submission of Mr. Bose is that the Supreme Court in All India Reporter's case : (1988)ILLJ551SC , mainly considered the effect of the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act and the consideration weighed with the Supreme Court in treating the 'All India Reporter' as newspaper was that the said Act was a beneficial legislation which was enacted for the purpose of improving the conditions of service of the employees of the newspaper establishments and hence even if it is possible to have two opinions on the construction of the provision of the Act, the one which advances the object of the Act and is in favour of the employees for whose benefit the Act is passed has to be accepted. The Supreme Court in this case, as submitted by Mr. Bose, was considering the question whether the employees of the All India Reporter Ltd. were entitled to the benefits of the said Act inasmuch as the point of objection taken by the All India Reporter Ltd. was that the All India Reporter and other law journals were not newspapers within the meaning of the said Act, and as such the said All India Reporter Ltd. was not a newspaper establishment.

20. I have considered the respective submissions of the parties. As I have indicated before, the only question involved in this application is whether the said periodical 'Khela' could be treated as a newspaper within the meaning of item 45 of the Schedule to the said Act. If 'Khela' is to be treated as a newspaper then the petitioner is obviously entitled to purchase raw materials for the purpose of publishing the said periodical at a concessional rate.

21. Referring to various Acts, namely, the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, the Newspaper (Price and Page) Act, 1956 and the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, it will appear that 'newspaper' has been defined to mean any printed periodical work containing public news or comments on public news.

22. The dictionary meaning of newspaper as given in the Oxford Dictionary is 'a printed, now usually, daily or weekly, publication containing the news, commonly with the addition of advertisement and other matters of interest'. The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary defines newspaper as a paper published periodically for circulating news, etc.

23. Therefore, it appears that the primary content of the newspaper is that news meant for the public and comments on such public news.

24. The Supreme Court while considering 'All India Reporter', a law journal, as newspaper observed that publication of recent judgment itself in the said law reports was sufficient to make the law report a newspaper.

25. No one would, however, dispute the fact that the said sports magazine 'Khela' being a periodical publishes news on sports at regular intervals and also contains comments on the news. Therefore, according to the definition of 'newspaper' in various statutes referred to above and also the dictionary meaning of newspaper, it can be said that the said periodical publishes news on sports and comments on the sports news at regular intervals.

26. I have, therefore, no doubt in my mind, in considering and treating the said sports magazine as newspaper particularly when the law journal could be treated as newspaper.

27. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the respondent No. 1 has not properly interpreted the expression 'newspaper'.

28. A point of maintainability has also been taken by the respondents that the present writ application is not maintainable at all in view of the later order dated 4th November, 1988, passed by respondent No. 1 which is not the subject-matter of challenge in the instant writ application. While this application was pending the petitioner requested to make suitable direction on the respondent to consider issue of declaration forms to the petitioner and issue the same to the petitioner if the petitioner is so entitled in accordance with law. By an order dated 12th October, 1988, I directed the respondent to consider the question of issuing declaration form to the petitioner and issue the same if the petitioner was entitled to in accordance with law.

29. Pursuant to such directions, respondent No. 1 has passed an order on 4th November, 1988, by which the respondent concerned refused to issue declaration forms in view of the fact that 'Khela' could not be treated as newspaper and as such the petitioners were not entitled to get declaration in form XXIVA for manufacturing 'Khela'. By the said order dated 4th November, 1988, the authority concerned issued declaration form to the dealer required to cover purchases of raw materials required for publication of 'Aajkaal' a newspaper. The dealer must not use the forms to cover purchases of raw materials required for publication of 'Khela' till the judgment of this Court in the pending proceedings. Mr. Chakraborty submits that the impugned order in this writ application is being challenged on the ground that the decision of the respondent in not treating the said sports magazine 'Khela' as newspaper was erroneous in law.

30. Mr. Chakraborty further submits that in any event the declaration form was refused to the petitioner-company for the purpose of purchasing raw materials for 'Khela' on the ground that the same was not newspaper within the meaning of the Act.

31. I hold that 'Khela' should be treated as newspaper and the petitioner-company should be entitled to purchase the raw materials at a concessional rate which concession is available in the case of newspaper.

32. For the reasons aforesaid, I set aside the said order dated 22nd July, 1988, whereby the said magazine 'Khela' is not treated as newspaper, as also the order dated 4th November, 1988, to the extent of restrain order that the petitioner must not use the forms under XXIVA delivered to it to cover purchase of raw materials required for publication of 'Khela'.

33. This writ application, therefore, succeeds. In the facts and circumstances of the case, there will be no order as to costs.

34. Learned counsel for the respondent prays for a stay of this order. This prayer is refused.