K.C.Agarwal, J. - (1.) This writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution has been filed by M/s. Shree Laxmi Distributing Agency Private Limited, for ceriiorari quashing of the notification dated 18th July, 1979, partly in so far as it lays down that the exemption from payment of tax on the purchase of wheat for use as raw material in the manufacture of the notified goods provided that such wheat was purchased from the Food Corporation of India.
(2.) The petitioner is a company registered under the Companies Act and engaged in the production of atta, maida, suji, etc. In the year 1958, the Central Government issued an order known as Wheat (Regulation and Use in Roller Mills) Order, 1958. Under Clause 4 of this Order, the roller mill was prohibited from purchasing any wheat from the open market. It could, under the Order, use the wheat which was allotted by the Government or the Government agency, Food Corporation of India. Since the roller flour mills were prohibited from purchasing the wheat from open market and the Food Corporation of India, according to the allegations of the roller mill, was not supplying the requisite quantity of wheat to the roller mills, a number of writ petitions were filed in the High Court as well as the Supreme Court. Before the Supreme Court, a statement was made on behalf of the Central Government on the basis of which, vide its order dated 9th August, 1984, that millers were to be given wheat to the extent of 100 per cent gave a direction to that effect. The Government of India on 10th April, 1985, issued an order permitting the purchase of wheat by the roller flour mills from open market. The effect of the Government notification was that the roller flour mills could purchase wheat from open market as well as from the Food Corporation of India. The notification dated 18th July, 1979, exempts from payment of purchase tax on wheat purchased from the Food Corporation of India. The petitioner filed this writ petition challenging the validity of the aforesaid notification on the basis that the benefit of Section 4-B could not be confined to the purchases to be made from the Food Corporation of India. According to the petitioner, there is an unjustified discrimination between two types of purchases-one made from the Food Corporation of India and the other from open market. The purpose of purchase being the same, the petitioner's contention taken in the writ petition was that the exemption granted arbitrarily discriminates between the purchases from two sources and, as such, the following clause of the aforesaid notification is liable to be declared ultra vires, which has been underlined by us was argued to be ultra vires: The Governor is further pleased to exempt, with immediate effect, subject to the conditions and restrictions specified in the said section, a roller flour mill holding a recognition certificate, from payment of tax on the purchase of wheat required by it for use as raw material in the manufacture of the said notified goods provided that such wheat is purchased from the Food Corporation of India.
(3.) Although the petitioner had taken a number of other grounds but the point, abovementioned, was alone pressed before us.;