Chennai Court March 1968 Judgments

Sitalakshmi Mills Ltd. Vs. the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer and ors.

Court: Chennai

Reported in: (1969)2MLJ22

ORDERK. Veeraswami, J.1. In this batch of cases the constitutional validity of Clause (b) of Sub-section (2) of Section 8 of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 and of the opening words of Sub-section (4) of that section which make Sub-section (1) inapplicable in certain contingencies is raised. In Larsen and Toubro Ltd. v. Joint Commercial Tax Officer : (1967)2MLJ552 . The State of Madras v. N.K. Nataraja Mudaliar. This case has since been reversed by the Supreme Court in (1969) 1 M.L.J. (S.C.) 21 : (1969) 1 A.W.R. (S.C.) 28 : (1969) 22 S.T.C. 376 : (1969) 1 S.C.J. 318 (Ed.), to which one of us was a party, this Court struck down Sub-sections (2) (2-A) and (5) of Section 8 on the ground that they violated Articles 301 and 303 (1) of the Constitution. This was on the view that the differential rates or exemptions in various States laid an unequal burden on same or similar goods which affected their free movement or flow of inter-State trade and commerce. It was pointed out that the differe...