The Appeals have been placed before this Bench pursuant to an Order of this Court dated 16th January, 2002.
In respect of the canned software the Commercial Tax Officer, Hyderabad, passed a provisional Order of Assessment under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 hereinafter called the said Act holding that the software were goods.
The canned software programmes are pragrammes like Oracle, Lotus, Master Key, N Export, Unigraphics, etc.
The Appellants then filed a Tax Revision Case in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which has been dismissed by impugned Judgment dated 12th December, 1996.
The Appellants are licensees with permission to sub licence these packages to others.
The Commercial Tax Officer accordingly levied sales tax on this software.
The Appellate Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes also held that the software were goods and liable to tax.
WITH CIVIL APPEAL NOs.
2584, 2585 2586/98 Delivered by B.SINHA, J N. VARIAVA, J B. SINHA, J INTRODUCTION Whether an intellectual property companytained in floppies, disks or CD ROMs would be goods within the meaning of Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 hereinafter called as the Act is the question involved in this appeal which arises out of a judgment and order dated 12th December, 1996 passed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
The canned Software Packages are of the ownership of companypanies persons, who have developed those software.
As part of their business they prepare and load on customers companyputers custom made software for sake of companyvenience hereinafter referred to as uncanned software and also sell Computer Software Packages off the shelf hereinafter referred to as canned software .
N. VARIAVA, J. These Appeals are against the Judgment dated 12th December, 1996 of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
