ORDER

The following Order of the Court (S. K Das; J. L. Kapur A.K. Sarkar; M. Hidayatullah and Raghubar Dayal JJ.) was delivered by

Judgement

S. K. DAS , J.: In these writ petitions the State Trading Corporation of India Ltd. and K. B. Lall who, at the time of the filing of the petitions was Additional Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, but is no longer holding such office now, are the petitioners who seek relief against the State of Andhra Pradesh in two of the petition and the State of Bihar in the third petition by the issuance of a writ of certiorari or other appropriate writ or direction for quashing the orders of a Commercial Tax Officer of the State concerned assessing the Corporation to sales tax and also for quashing the notice of demand issued to them for payment of the sum assessed.

2. When the learned Attorney General opened the case for the petitioners in writ Petition No. 202 of 1961, learned counsel appearing for the respondents asked for our permission to raise certain preliminary objections to the maintainability of the Writ Petitions Nos. 202 and 203 of 1961. Learned Counsel for the respondents in Writ Petition No. 204 of 1961 intimated