Judgment

HIDAYATULLAH, J. : These are two appeals on certificates granted by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh against a common judgment in a sales tax revision filed by the appellants in the High Court.

2. The facts are as follows : In the year 1952-53, for which the assessment of sales tax was in question, the appellants dealt in gunnies, and purchased them from two mills in Vishakapatnam District and in respect of which they issued delivery orders to third parties, with whom they had entered into separate transactions. The procedure followed by the appellants was this : They first entered into contracts with the Mills agreeing to purchase gunnies at a certain rate for future delivery. Exhibit A-1 is a specimen of such contracts. The appellants also entered into agreements with the Mills, by which the Mills agreed to deliver the goods to third parties if requested by the appellants. The Mills, however, did not accept the third parties as contracting parties but only as agents of the appellants. Exhibits A-2 and A-2(a) are specimen agreements of this kind. Before the date of delivery, the appellants entered into agreements with third parties, by which they charged something extra from the third parties and handed over to them the delivery orders, which were known as kutcha delivery orders. Exhibits A-3 and A-4 are specimens of the agreement and the delivery orders respectively. The Mills used to deliver the goods against the kutcha delivery orders along with an invoice and a bill, of which Exs. A-6 and A-7 are specimens respectively, and collected the sales tax from the third parties. The tax authorities, however, treated the transaction between the appellants and third parties as a fresh sale, and sought to levy sales tax on it again, which, the appellants, contended, was not demandable, as there was no second sale.

3. The appellants failed in their contentions before the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Guntur, and their appeals to the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Guntur and the Andhra Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Guntur, were unsuccessful. The appellants then went up in revision to the High Court under the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1939 (as amended by Madras Act No. 6 of 1951), but were again unsuccessful. The High Court, however, granted certificates, on which these appeals have been filed.

4. The contentions of the appellants are that the agreement and the delivery of the kutcha delivery order did not amount to a sale of goods, but was only an assignment of a right to obtain delivery of the gunnies, which were not in existence at the time of the transaction with third parties, and were not appropriated to the contract, or, in the alternative, that this was only an assignment of a forward contract. They seem to have relied in the High Court upon the decisions of this Court reported in Sales Tax Officer, Pilibhit v. Messrs. Budh Prakash Jai Prakash, 1955-1 SCR 243 and Poppatlal Shah v. State of Madras, 1953 SCR 677 to show that these transactions were not sales. These cases were not relied upon by the appellants before us, presumably because the High Court has adequately shown their inapplicability to the facts here.

5. The learned Solicitor-General appearing for the appellants rested his case entirely upon the first contention, namely, that there was only as assignment of a right to obtain delivery of the gunnies and not a sale. He contended that there was only one transaction of sale between the Mills and the third parties, who, on the strength of the assignment of the right to take delivery, had received the goods from the Mills. In our opinion, this does not represent the true nature of the transactions, either in fact, or in law.

6. To begin with, the Mills had made clear in their agreements that they were not recognising the third parties as contracting parties having privity with them, and that delivery would be given against the kutcha delivery orders to the third parties as agents of the appellants. The Mi