Case: Pashabhai Patel &amp; Company Private Limited Vs. S.I.H. Razvi

1. The appellants are a private limited Company having their registered office in the City of Bombay, and they are carrying on business as dealers in agricultural machinery and tools in Bombay. In the course of their business, they entered into several contracts with the Government of Bihar and the local authorities in that State for the sale and delivery of agricultural construction and earth-moving machinery and spare parts. The respondent who is the concerned Commercial Tax Officer of the State of Bihar issued notices to the appellants calling upon them to submit returns of sales effected by them to consumers in the State of Bihar during the periods 1-4-1953 to 31-3-1955 and 1-4-1955 to 6-9-1955, and produce their accounts for the purpose of assessment of the tax payable thereon. The appellants questioned the legality of the proposed levy and after a prolonged correspondence, filed on 10-7-1957, an application in the High Court of Bombay for the issue of an appropriate writ to restrain the respondent from taking proceedings for imposing any tax on the sales. The grounds on which the appellants disputed the validity of the assessment had been already considered by a Bench of the Bombay High Court in a judgment pronounced on 10-8-1956 and reported in Dialdas v. P. S. Talwalkar, AIR 1957 Bom 71  (A). In view of this decision, the application of the appellants was summarily dismissed by Tendolkar and Shelat, JJ., on 10-7-1957, and it is against this order that this appeal has been preferred by special leave of this Court.

Reasoning: 3. This appeal was heard by us along with Petitions Nos. 220, 222, 240 and 380 to 395 of 1955, in which similar contentions were raised, and in the judgment delivered by us in those petitions today, we have held that those contentions are unsustainableIn view of the conclusions stated by us therein, this appeal must fail.