Sales Tax

Concession/Exemption/Incentive/Rebate

— Exemption — Prestigious units — Eligibility — J&K Government Industrial Policy 1998-2003 — GO No. 202-IND dated 27-5-1998 providing for exemption to large/medium/small and tiny industries from general sales tax and Central sales tax except in respect of goods notified in negative list under para 6 — Para 10 of Annexure `B' to the GO containing provisions in respect of prestigious units and paras 8 & 9 containing provisions in respect of other units — SRO No. 247 dated 20-8-1998 exempting prestigious units i.e. those with an investment of Rs 25 crores or more, from general sales tax and Central sales tax and SRO No. 249 exempting medium and large-scale units with the stipulation that the incentive would not apply to goods specified in the negative list (the Schedule) — Applicability of the negative list appended to SRO 249 — Held, not applicable to ``prestigious units'' — The policy of Government to treat a prestigious unit on a footing different from medium and large-scale industrial units unless suffering from arbitrariness or unreasonableness in classification, held, not subject to judicial review, (2006) 5 SCC 772-A

Sales Tax

Concession/Exemption/Incentive/Rebate

— Exemption — Prestigious unit — Appellant whether on facts qualified for being declared as a prestigious unit — J&K Government Industrial Policy 1998-2003 offering a package of incentives for, inter alia, prestigious units, by way of exemption from GST and CST — Prestigious unit defined as a unit with capital investment of Rs 25 crores or more — No last date prescribed for such investment — In view thereof, appellant whose unit was registered as a medium-scale industry and whose investment at that time was below Rs 25 crores, approaching the Government with a proposal to invest the requisite amount to qualify as a prestigious unit — With the approval of the Cabinet, the nodal agency of the Government entering into an MoU with the appellant — MoU showing that Government had taken a conscious decision to permit the appellant to start the manufacture of the article concerned by the specified time and to complete the minimum capital investment within six months thereafter — Government further deciding to give the appellant the benefits of the incentives if it complied with the said decision of the Government — Appellant complying with the said decision — In such circumstances, held, the Government could not ignore its own decision and deny the benefits to the appellant on the basis that on the date of commencement of commercial production its investment was less than that required, (2006) 5 SCC 772-B