Report No. 30
112. Doctrine of original package does not apply to India.-But this doctrine of original package has no place in our country. (See the II Travancore case and State of Bombay v. F.N. Balsara, AIR 1951 SC 318). Our Supreme Court has adopted a simpler test for determining when the course of import comes to end. I have already shown 1 by reference to the decisions of the Supreme Court and of the High Court of Madras that the course of the import of the goods would end when the goods cross the customs barrier of the importing country.
1. See Paras. 37, 104 and 406.
113. I am not, however, here so much directly concerned with the difference that exists on this subject between the American law and ours, as with the result that ipso facto follows on the goods ceasing to be imports. Whether the goods cease to be imports on their packages being broken up as under the Constitution of U.S.A., or on their crossing of the customs frontier as under our Constitution, the result is the same. As soon as the goods imported lose their character as imports, in one or the other way they become mingled with the general mass of our property in a State and subject to State taxation.
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