Orissa High Court: In a set of two sales tax revision applications dealing with the issue that- whether a ‘tractor trailer’ is a ‘motor vehicle’ for the purposes of Section 2 (h) of the Odisha Entry tax Act, 1999 (‘OET Act’) and is it amenable to entry tax, the Division Bench of Arindam Sinha and M.S. Sahoo, JJ. allowed the petition and answered the issue in negative.
The revisionist-petitioner’s case was that entry tax is not leviable on a tractor-trailer. The petitioner’s vehicle was a 4-ton 2-wheeled capacity tractor trailer. The petitioner sought a revision of the Odisha Sales Tax Tribunal’s order, wherein his application was unsuccessful.
The Revenue’s submission was that a ‘tractor-trailer’ is not a ‘tractor’. Only a tractor is excluded from the definition of motor vehicle by Section 2(h) in OET Act.
The Court referred to a co-ordinate Bench decision in Laxmi Govinda Agro Industries v. State of Odisha1, wherein a similar question of law was dealt with and the same was answered in negative. Therein, it was stated that- “a trailer attached to a tractor by itself cannot be classified as ‘Motor vehicle’. It is nobody’s case that the trolley has any ‘motor so as to attract such a definition.”
For a better understanding of the issue at hand, the Court perused Section 2(28) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 which defines ‘motor vehicle’ and ‘vehicle’, prescribing that, “motor vehicle” or “vehicle” means any mechanically propelled vehicle adapted for use upon roads whether the power of propulsion is transmitted thereto from an external or internal source and includes a chassis to which a body has not been attached and a trailer; but does not include a vehicle running upon fixed rails or a vehicle of a special type adapted for use only in a factory or in any other enclosed premises or a vehicle having less than four wheels fitted with engine capacity of not exceeding [twenty-five cubic centimetres].
The Court said that there was no dispute that the product manufactured by the petitioner (tractor trailer) does not have a motor, hence, it can only find meaning as given for ‘vehicle’, by Section 2(28) in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Hence, agreeing with the petitioner’s submission, the Court answered the issue at hand in negative.
[Aman Enterprises v. State of Odisha, 2024 SCC OnLine Ori 2299, decided on: 11-09-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the petitioner: Sr. Advocate R.P. Kar; B.P. Mohanty, Advocate; S.A. Mohanty, Advocate;
For the respondent: A.K. Sharma, AGA; S. Mishra, Advocate
1. STREV no.28 of 2017.
