Judgment :- 1. This revision petition is at the instance of the Revenue and challenges the decision of the Kerala Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Kozhikode Bench holding that the purchase of granite by the assessee for use in the erection/repair of sea walls was not liable to tax under S.5 A of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963, (the Act for short) The Tribunal held that the granite purchased had not been used in the manufacture of other goods for sale or otherwise and hence S.5A(1) (a) was not attracted. 2. We are in agreement with the decision of the Tribunal The assessee is a contractor The purchase of the granite in question was for erecting certain sea walls between Chalil and Gopalapetta and also for repairs to certain existing sea walls The assessment years are 1975-76 and 1976-77 The assessing authority and the Appellate Assistant Commissioner in the first appeal held that the assessee had 'consumed' the goods in the manufacture of other goods for sale or otherwise and hence the purchases became taxable under S.5A(1)(a), S.5A(1) reads thus: "5 A Levy of purchase Tax.- (1) Every dealer who, in the course of his business, purchases from a registered dealer or from any other person any goods, the sale or purchase of which is liable to tax under this Act in circumstances in which no tax is payable under S; 5 and either - (a) consumes such goods in the manufacture of other goods for sale or otherwise; or (b) disposes of such goods in any manner other than by way of sale in the State; or (c) despatches them to any place outside the State except as a direct result of sale or purchase in the course of interstate trade or commerce. shall, whatever be the quantum of the turnover relating to such purchases for a year, pay tax on the taxable turnover relating to such purchase for the year at the rates mentioned in S.5." 3. shall, whatever be the quantum of the turnover relating to such purchases for a year, pay tax on the taxable turnover relating to such purchase for the year at the rates mentioned in S.5." 3. The Supreme Court had occasion to deal with this provision in the case of Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax v Pio Food Packers 1980 KLT 624: (46 STC 63) The Court interpreted sub clause (a) to refer to goods consumed in the manufacture of other goods for sale or goods consumed in the manufacture of other goods for purposes other than sale It was thus held that the words "or otherwise" qualify the word "sale" and not the expression "consumed" Consumption of the goods, for the purpose of this sub clause, has therefore to be in the manufacture of other goods whether it is for sale or for other purposes If the goods are consumed for purposes other than manufacture of goods, the contingency adumbrated by this sub-clause does not occur When a contractor constructs a building or structure or erects a sea wall he is not manufacturing any goods The materials used in the construction become part of immovable property The title to the same passes to the owner of the land as an accretion thereto Therefore and in the absence of any manufacture of goods sub clause (a) of sub-section (1) of S.5A is cot attracted, when a contractor purchases materials and uses them in constructing buildings or other structures. 4. 4. Counsel for the Revenue Sri T Karunakaran Nambiar, Special Government Pleader (Taxes) however, contended before us that the decision of the Supreme Court in Ganesh Prasad Dixit v Commissioner of Sales Tax, Madhya Pradesh (24 STC 343) squarely applies to such cases There, the Supreme Court was concerned with the imposition of purchase tax under S.7 of the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act The question referred to the High Court for its opinion was whether the contractor in that case was a 'dealer' and the imposition of purchase tax on him under S.7 of the Act was in order The Supreme Court upheld the contention of the Revenue that the contractor - assessee was "dealer" as defined in S.2(d) of the Madhya Pradesh Act In that context, they also went on to observe that the contractor had consumed the materials otherwise than in the manufacture of goods for sale, and "for a profit motive" The Court then proceeded to observe: "Mr Chagla for the appellants urged that the expression "or otherwise" is intended to denote a conjunctive introducing a specific alternative to the words "for sale" immediately preceding The clause in which it occurs moans, says Mr Chagla, that by S.7 the price paid for buying goods consumed in the manufacture of other goods, intended to be sold or otherwise disposed of, alone is taxable We do not think that that is a reasonable interpretation of the expression "either consumes such goods in the manufacture of other goods for sale or otherwise" It is intended by the Legislature that consumption of goods renders the price paid for their purchase taxable, if the goods are used in the manufacture of other goods for sale or if the goods are consumed otherwise." 5. Based on these observations, counsel for the Revenue contended that consumption of the goods in any manner whatsoever ipso-facto brought the purchase within the net of sub-clause (a) of sub-section (1) of S.5(A) He pressed for acceptance of this view in preference to the interpretation placed on the words "or otherwise" in the case of Pio Food Packers 1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63) We may at once point out that the decision in Ganesh Prasad Dixit (24 STC 343) is seen not referred to in Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax v Pio Food Packers 1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63). 6. 6. On examining the facts of the case Ganesh Prasad Dixit v Commissioner of Sales Tax (24 STC 343) we are unable to discern any finding in that case that the goods purchased by the contractor had been used in the construction of buildings Even the decision in Ganesh Prasad Dixit v Commissioner of Sales Tax (17 STC 14) which went up in appeal to the Supreme Court as Ganesh Prasad Dixit v Commissioner of Sales Tax (24 STC 343) does not disclose that the goods purchased had been used in the construction of buildings All that, we are able to gather from the decisions of the Supreme Court and of the Madhya Pradesh High Court is that the building materials purchased had been used in the course of the business of the appellant-contractor in that case The Supreme Court was therefore concerned only with the question whether the appellant-contractor was a "dealer" as defined in the Madhya Pradesh Sales Tax Act The observations from the judgment extracted above and relied on by counsel for the Revenue have to be understood in this context The question as to the meaning of the words "or otherwise" in the provision arose directly in the case of Pio Food Packers (1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63) and the Supreme Court applied these words to qualify the word "sale" and not the word "consumed" We are, therefore, inclined to follow the said decision in Pio Food Packers (1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63) as the one directly in point. 7. In any case the decision in Pio Food Packers 1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63) is later in point of time rendered over a decade after the decision in Ganesh Prasad Dixit (24 STC 343) Both the decisions have been rendered by Benches of equal strength namely three judges We are bound to follow the later decision, even assuming that there is a conflict between the two. 8. 8. The view taken by us on the facts of this case is in accord with the view taken by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh in the decision in Nandanam Construction Company v Assistant Commissioner (53 STC 42) and by the High Court of Madras in State of Tamil Nadu v East Coast Constructions and Industries (61 STC 337) while dealing with analogous provisions in the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu enactments In the first of these cases, the Andhra Pradesh High Court observed that the goods purchased by the contractor, namely sand, bricks and the like used in the construction of flats were not consumed in the manufacture of other goods for sale in as much as the contractors were not manufacturing any other goods for sale or for any other purpose In the absence of sunbh consumption the contractor was not liable to pay tax on those purchases In this case the Andhra Pradesh High Court was of the view that there was a conflict of opinion between the two cases of Ganesh Prasad Dixit (24 STC 343) and Pio Food Packers 1980 KLT 624 (46 STC 63) and that they were bound to follow the later decision. 9. In the other decision, the Madras High Court held on a consideration of S.7A(1)(a) of the Tamil Nadu Act that the clause cannot be invoked when the contractor used the goods in the construction of immovable property, namely buildings as the very condition for the applicability of the section, namely consumption in the manufacture of other goods was not satisfied The Madras High Court also held that there was no disposal of the goods in any manner other than by way of sale in as much as there was no transfer of the goods to any other person. 10. We, therefore, hold that the purchase of materials by the assessee-contractor for use in the construction/repair of sea walls is not liable to tax under S.5A. 11. We dismiss the revision cases There will be no order as to costs.