Krishna Iyer, J. - (1.) This batch of cases between a State Government (Andhra Pradesh) and the Union Government suggests the need for litigative discipline for our governments and a periodical post-auditing in that behalf. And now we make good this inaugural observation by narrating briefly the necessary facts and examining closely the few points tersely presented by the Additional Solicitor General appearing for the common appellant in all these cases.
(2.) Our Constitution mandates on the State welfare activism and contemplates its undertaking distribution of commodities essential to the life of the community at large through trade and business directly organised or in other suitable ways. Food grains and fertilisers are strategic items and the Union of India has, in fulfilment of high governmental functions, been procuring these vital goods and selling them to the States or their nominees so as to ensure equitable supplies and price discipline. Pursuant to this commendable programme the Central Government constructed an infrastructure and, pertinent to our purpose, appointed, inter alia, a Joint Director of Food stationed in the port town of Visakhapatnam. This Officer sold, for the price fixed by his Government, food grains and fertilisers to the Andhra Pradesh State and other States. These transactions, in the language of sales tax law, fell within the twin categories of intra-State and inter-State sales. A vigilant State Sales Tax Officer directed the filing of returns by the appellant under the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 (Act VI of 1957) (for short the State Act) and the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (for short the Central Act). This was complied with in six returns for the span of three years but was coupled with a plea of immunity from tax on grounds which will be presently discussed. The adverse fate of these contentions at the hands of the Sales Tax Officer and the appellate officer eventuated in further appeals to the Tax Tribunal. The three appeals covered by the Central Act were remanded for the narrow purpose of determining the presence of profit motive in the Central Government while undertaking these dealings as that element is decisive of the appellant being a dealer doing business and therefore liable to tax under the Central Act. The other three appeals were duly dismissed and these successive defeats notwithstanding, the Central Government's Joint Director moved the High Court in all the six cases. Undaunted by discomfiture there, the appellant has arrived here, discretion not being the better part of valour even where public money is involved.
(3.) The learned Additional Solicitor General has rightly discarded some of the rhetorical but lifeless contentions urged before the High Court based on Part IV of the Constitution. The surviving points pressed before us may now be set out and discussed.;