Gajendragadkar, C. J. - (1.) This group of 12 writ petitions raises a common question about the validity of the Orissa Sales Tax Validation Act, 1961(Act No. 7 of 1961) (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The facts on which the petitioners rely are similar, and so, we shall mention the facts in the first group consisting of writ petitions Nos. 125-135 of 1963. The petitioner in this group is Shri.Epari Chinna Krishna Moorthy, Proprietor, Epari Chinna Krishna Moorthy and Sons, Berhampur, Orissa. He is a merchant who carries on business in "bullion and specie" and gold and silver ornaments at Berhampur and as such merchant, he has been registered as 'dealer' under the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947. (Act No. 14 of 1947). After the said Act came into force, the Government of Orissa purporting to exercise its authority under S. 6 of the said Sales Tax Act issued a notification exemption certain articles from the operation of the charging section of that Act. Under this notification, gold ornaments were ordered to be exempted from sales-tax 'when the manufacturer selling them charges separately for the value of gold and the cost of manufacture'. This notification was issued on July 1, 1949. During the course of his business, the petitioner manufactures gold ornaments by supplying the gold to the artisans and getting ornaments prepared by them under his supervision and when the ornaments are so prepared, he sells them in his shop and has been showing the value of gold and the cost of manufacture separately. That is why the petitioner alleges that he is entitled to claim the benefit of the exemption notification.
(2.) Consistently with this plea, the petitioner filed his returns before the Sales-tax Officer at Berhampur and had been claiming exemption of sales-tax on the sales as being entitled to exemption under the said notification. Upto June, 1952, the claim for exemption made by him was upheld and the amount represented by sales of the said gold ornaments was deducted from the taxable turnover shown by the petitioner in his returns. Subsequently, however, these assessments were re-opened under S. 12 (7) of the act and it was claimed that the deductions were made on certain sale transactions of gold ornaments were not justified and to that extent, the petitioner had escaped assessment. The petitioner resisted this attempt to reopen the assessment and he pleaded that he was entitled to claim exemption under the notification, because he belonged to the class of manufacturers to which the notification referred.
(3.) The Sales-tax Officer, however, disallowed the petitioner's contention and proceeded to levy tax on the sale transactions in question. The petitioner then challenged the said decision by preferring appeals, but the said appeals were also dismissed. While the appeals were pending similar assessments made in respect of other dealers including the petitioner were challenged by them by writ petition before the High Court of Orissa (Nos. 151, 161, 162, 204, 209 and 110 of 1957 respectively.);