SALES TAX OFFICER CUTTAK Vs. B C PATEL AND CO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We agree that this appeal must be allowed in part but we prefer to rest our judgment on one of the material points on a ground which is different from that adopted by our learned Brother S. K. Das, J., in the judgment which has just been delivered by him and which we have had the advantage of perusing.

(2.) The Orissa Sales Tax Act, (Orissa XIV of 1947), hereinafter referred to as the said Act received the assent of the Governor-General on 26th April 1947, when S. 1 of the Act came into force. On 1st August 1947, a Notification was issued by the Government of Orissa bringing the rest of the said Act into force in the Province of Orissa, as it was then constituted. Section 4, as it stood at all times material to this appeal, ran as follows :

(3.) On 1st January 1948, by a covenant of merger executed by its ruler, the feudatory State of Pallahara merged into the province of Orissa. In exercise of the powers delegated to it by the Government of India under what was then known as the Extra Provincial Jurisdiction Act, 1947, the Government of Orissa on 14th December 1948, issued a notification under S. 4 of that Extra Provincial Jurisdiction Act, extending the Orissa Sales Tax Act to the territories of the erstwhile feudatory States, including Pallahara which had merged into the province of Orissa, on 1st March 1949, a notification under S. 1(3) was issued by the Government of Orissa, bringing Ss. 2 to 29 of the said Act into force in the added territories. On the same day another notification was issued under S. 4 (1) of the Act, which was in the following terms :