JUDGMENT The judgment of the Court was delivered by G. SIVARAJAN, J. - T.R.C. Nos. 126 and 130 of 1993 relate to the assessment year 1974-75 and T.R.C. Nos. 131 of 1993 and 159 of 1995 relate to the assessment year 1975-76. All the four revision cases are at the instance of the department and the questions for consideration in all the four cases are also common. Therefore, all the four revision cases are disposed of by a common judgment. 2. The question of law raised for decision of this Court in all the four cases are the same and they are as follows : "1. Whether, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was right in directing the deletion of the amount of cess from the taxable turnover ? 2. Whether, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was right in finding that the assessee cannot be called upon to pay tax higher than what is suggested in the Schedule and while computing tax liability of the assessee credit shall be given to the amount of sales tax suffered by the assessee at the time of the local purchase of the reclaimed rubber ? 3. Is not the finding of the Tribunal on this question vitiated by arbitrariness, lack of evidence, perverse and without any material at all ? 4. Whether in the facts and circumstances of the case the Tribunal was right in holding that sales effected are in the course of inter-State sale and not sale within the State ? 5. Is the finding and conclusion arrived at by the Tribunal justified in law ?" 3. The respondent, in all the four revision cases, M/s. Madras Rubber Factory Limited, Kottayam, is an assessee on the file of the Assistant Commissioner (Assessment), Special Circle, Kottayam. The assessee is a manufacturing unit of M/s. Madras Rubber Factory Limited, having its registered office at Madras. The respondent, in all the four revision cases, M/s. Madras Rubber Factory Limited, Kottayam, is an assessee on the file of the Assistant Commissioner (Assessment), Special Circle, Kottayam. The assessee is a manufacturing unit of M/s. Madras Rubber Factory Limited, having its registered office at Madras. As could be seen from the questions raised and which have been extracted above, the issues relate to (1) the deletion of the amount of cess paid by the assessee from the taxable turnover of the assessee, (2) whether as a consequence of the finding that reclaimed rubber is rubber, the assessee is entitled to adjustment of the tax paid on their purchase of reclaimed rubber in computing the tax liability of the assessee and (3) as to whether the purchases effected by the head office of the assessee from the growers of rubber inside the State constitute inter-State sale as contended by the assessee or local sales as contended by the department. 4. As already stated, the first question is as to whether the rubber cess paid by the assessee-company is liable to be excluded from the taxable turnover under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act. The Tribunal has held that it is not liable to be included in the taxable turnover of the assessee in view of the Full Bench decision of this Court in the case of the assessee itself in Madras Rubber Factory Limited v. State of Kerala [1989] 74 STC 56. The question, according to us, is concluded by the abovementioned Full Bench decision. Accordingly, we hold that the Tribunal is perfectly justified in directing deletion of the said amount from the taxable turnover of the assessee. 5. The next question is as to whether the alternate contention raised by the assessee before the Tribunal that if tax is to be levied on the local purchase turnover of reclaimed rubber at the hands of the assessee, as held by the Tribunal, then the tax paid by the assessee at the time of purchase has to be given credit for. The Appellate Tribunal held that the claim is just and reasonable holding that the assessee had purchased the reclaimed rubber after paying 4 per cent sales tax in good faith and on the basis of a bona fide opinion and therefore, the assessee cannot be called upon to pay tax higher than what is suggested in the Schedule. 6. The Appellate Tribunal held that the claim is just and reasonable holding that the assessee had purchased the reclaimed rubber after paying 4 per cent sales tax in good faith and on the basis of a bona fide opinion and therefore, the assessee cannot be called upon to pay tax higher than what is suggested in the Schedule. 6. We are of the view that the Tribunal had no material before it to grant the relief claimed by the assessee. It is the case of the assessee that it had paid sales tax on its purchase turnover of reclaimed rubber to its seller. Assuming that the assessee had paid tax on the said purchase to the selling dealer, there is no material available on record to show that the said dealer has made over the said amount of sales tax collected from the assessee to the Government admitting liability to the sales tax on the sales turnover of reclaimed rubber. The Deputy Commissioner (Appeals) of Agricultural Income-tax and Sales Tax, Ernakulam while considering the claim of the assessee, according to us, has rightly pointed out that the fact that the sellers of reclaimed rubber have collected sales tax in their bills and thereby the goods have suffered tax at an earlier stage would not help to shift the liability of the last purchaser to the earlier seller, who may have made an undue collection of sales tax. In view of the decision of the Tribunal, which is not questioned before us to the effect that reclaimed rubber is rubber and therefore, the assessee is the last purchaser of rubber inside the State liable to tax under the provisions of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, the fact that his seller erroneously collected or bona fide collected sales tax on its sales to the assessee will not absolve the assessee from paying the tax due under the Act. For that reason, the assessee also cannot claim any adjustment of the tax erroneously or bona fide paid to a selling dealer because there is no provision under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 enabling the assessing authority or for that matter the appellate authorities including this Court sitting in revision to grant any such relief to a dealer. For that reason, the assessee also cannot claim any adjustment of the tax erroneously or bona fide paid to a selling dealer because there is no provision under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 enabling the assessing authority or for that matter the appellate authorities including this Court sitting in revision to grant any such relief to a dealer. Needless to say, as a consequence of the decision of the Tribunal holding that reclaimed rubber is rubber and therefore the assessee is the last purchaser in respect of the reclaimed rubber liable to tax under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963, it is open to the assessee to make a claim for refund of the said amount erroneously paid to the selling dealer, if the amount has been made over by the said selling dealer directly to the Government and if the claim is substantiated, the assessing authority is obliged to refund the said amount to the assessee. We accordingly hold that the Appellate Tribunal was not justified in granting relief of adjustment of tax erroneously collected from the assessee by the selling dealer in the computation of the said liability, as the authorities and the Tribunal have no jurisdiction to grant such relief. 7. Now, coming to the last question, i.e., regarding the inter-State nature of the transaction claimed by the assessee, the assessing authority mainly on the ground that the payments in respect of such purchases were made by the purchase depot at Kottayam and purchases were made from Kerala State proposed to treat the transaction as local purchase. The assessing authority summarised the objections of the assessee under point No. 13 of the assessment order as follows : "The contentions in brief, are that the orders were placed directly by the Head Office at Madras and the goods were supplied by the sellers in Kerala according to the terms of the orders to the factory at Madras, the property in the goods passed in the head office at Madras directly, all the ingredients of inter-State purchase by head office at Madras were existing in all the transactions and the depots at Kottayam and Calicut had nothing to do with these transactions, except that certain payments were made to the suppliers as per directions from the head office. The payment is not a relevant factor to judge who was the purchaser as explained above. The payment is not a relevant factor to judge who was the purchaser as explained above. It was only an internal arrangement of the head office to effect payments through its depots on their behalf to their creditors. It is urged that the observations that purchases are local purchases by the depots and are includible in the taxable purchase turnover is legally and factually wrong." The assessing authority considered the objections in the following manner : "The contentions put forth by the company have been examined. The payments effected by the depots in Kerala are not denied by the assessee. It is learnt that the quality of the rubber purchased was verified and the prices were fixed by the Kerala branches though this fact has been denied by the company. All these go to show that the purchase depots at Kottayam and Calicut had actually effected the purchases. As such it cannot be conclusively said that the purchases were effected directly by the Madras office from estate owners in Kerala. If the purchases were made direct and invoices issued directly to Madras office the payments could have been effected by the Madras office. There is no need to direct the Kottayam depot to effect payments if the said depot has no connection with these purchases. There were specific arrangements the advice telegraphically railway receipt/lorry way bill Nos. gross and net weight to make out transit insurance cover. From the above it is evidently clear that the goods before despatch from Kerala were got insured by the company in their name. Normally the risk of loss and the property in the goods pass simultaneously. It means before the movement of the goods from Kerala the property in the goods had been passed on from the estate owners to the assessee-company while the goods were in the State of Kerala. Thereafter the estate owners were acted as agents of the company for the transportation of goods from Kerala. As such the goods were carried from kerala to Madras as goods of M.R.F. at the risk of the assessee-company and not at the risk of estate owners. Therefore the sales by the estate owners could by no means be regarded as sales in the course of inter-State." Accordingly he treated the transaction as a local purchase. 8. As such the goods were carried from kerala to Madras as goods of M.R.F. at the risk of the assessee-company and not at the risk of estate owners. Therefore the sales by the estate owners could by no means be regarded as sales in the course of inter-State." Accordingly he treated the transaction as a local purchase. 8. The first appellate authority with reference to the contentions raised by the assessee examined the purchase orders of the Madras head office, invoices issued by the suppliers, Rubber Board "N" forms issued by the suppliers in favour of Madras head office, carriers way bill, etc., and observed that the above documents clearly establish that the transactions were directly and independently carried out between Madras head office and the various suppliers in Kerala without any linking by the Kerala unit, viz., the assessee. The linking is only with regard to certain payments under inter-State memorandum. This was also verified by the first appellate authority. Referring to the finding of the assessing authority the first appellate authority also observed that the assessing authority did not have any substantial evidence to prove that the assessee-company had effected purchase of rubber within the State on behalf of Madras head office. The first appellate authority accordingly held that the transactions in question are in the nature of "inter-State purchases" by MRF, Madras and that there are no materials to establish that the transactions were in the nature of purchases effected by the Kerala unit. 9. In the appeal filed by the State against this findings of the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals), the Appellate Tribunal noted the above findings and endorsed the same in the following manner : "In our opinion, these documentary evidences are sufficient to accept the contention of the assessee-company that the impugned purchases were direct purchases of raw rubber made by M.R.F. Ltd., Thiruvattiyoor from various estates in Kerala. They were purely inter-State transactions. These transactions cannot be held as local purchases for the only reason that the related payments were made by the Kottayam unit of M.R.F. Limited on advice from the head office at Madras. Therefore the contention of the Revenue is rejected." 10. They were purely inter-State transactions. These transactions cannot be held as local purchases for the only reason that the related payments were made by the Kottayam unit of M.R.F. Limited on advice from the head office at Madras. Therefore the contention of the Revenue is rejected." 10. The learned Additional Advocate-General appearing for the department very strenuously canvassed the concurrent findings of the two appellate authorities and submitted that the assessing authority had given cogent reasons for treating the transaction as local sales and that the two appellate authorities were not justified in upsetting the same. He submitted that the payment of the amount by the local unit of the company is a sure indication that the transaction is a local sale exigible to tax under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act. The learned senior counsel appearing for the assessee maintained that the two appellate authorities on a proper consideration of the documents relating to the transaction came to the conclusion that the transaction is an inter-State sale between the Madras head office and the suppliers of rubber in Kerala and that the payment of the amount by the assessee as per the direction of the head office is not inconsistent with the inter-State nature of the transaction. 11. On a consideration of the rival submissions, we are of the view that the assessee is entitled to succeed. The first appellate authority has considered the nature of the transactions after examining all the documents relating thereto and also the inter-office memorandum and also the debit entries in the account of the local unit and arrived at the finding, according to us rightly, that the assessee had clearly established that the transaction in question is an inter-State transaction between the Madras head office and the suppliers of rubber in Kerala and the fact that the payment had been effected by the local unit to the suppliers is not decisive of the nature of the transaction. The Appellate Tribunal also according to us rightly endorsed the said view. The assessing authority according to us had a closed mind on this question as he thought that the fact of payment of the amount by the local unit is decisive of the nature of the transaction. We accordingly hold that the decision of the Appellate Tribunal on this point is perfectly valid and justified. 12. The assessing authority according to us had a closed mind on this question as he thought that the fact of payment of the amount by the local unit is decisive of the nature of the transaction. We accordingly hold that the decision of the Appellate Tribunal on this point is perfectly valid and justified. 12. It is made clear that it is open to the assessee, if so advise, to make a claim as provided under section 46A of the Act before the assessing authority to get refund of the tax erroneously paid on the purchase turnover from the selling dealer. These tax revision cases are disposed of as above.