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 to us that his clients have already raised certain preliminary objections to the maintainability of the writ petition and they also wish to take objections similar to those taken on behalf of the respondents in Writ Petitions Nos. 202 and 203 of 1961.

3. We asked learned counsel for the respondents in Writ Petitions Nos. 202 and 203 of 1961 that he should formulate his preliminary objections to the maintainability of the writ petitions and file the same in Court. Learned counsel has now filed a petition asking for permission to urge certain preliminary objections to the maintainability of the writ petitions. We have granted such permission to learned counsel.

4. Two of these preliminary objections are: (1) whether the State Trading Corporation, a company registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, is a citizen within the meaning of Art. 19 of the Constitution and can ask for the enforcement of fundamental rights granted to citizens under the said article, and (2) whether the State Trading Corporation is, notwithstanding the formality of incorporation under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 in substance a department and organ of the Government of India with the entirety of its capital contributed by Government and can it claim to enforce fundamental rights under Part III of the Constitution against the State as defined in Art. 12 thereof ?

5. These two questions which have been raised by way of preliminary objections to the maintainability of the writ petitions are common to all the three petitions. In our view these two questions are of great constitutional importance and no decision of the Court finally deciding these two questions has been brought to our notice. We consider that by reason of the great constitutional importance of the questions raised, these three writ petitions should be placed before a larger Bench for decision. We accordingly direct that these three writ petitions be placed before the learned Chief Justice for necessary orders.

OPINION

SINHA, C.J. (On behalf of himself, S. R. Das P.B. Gajendragadkar, A. K. Sarkar K.N. Wanchoo and N. Rajgopala Ayyangar, JJ.)

6. The following two questions have been referred to the Special Bench by the Constitution Bench before which these cases came up for hearing.

(1) Whether State Trading Corporation, a company registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 is a citizen within the meaning of Art. 19 of the Constitution and can ask for the enforcement of fundamental rights granted to citizens under the said article; and

(2) whether the State Trading Corporation is, notwithstanding the formality of incorporation under the Indian Companies Act 1956 in substance a department and organ of the Government of India with the entirety of its capital contributed by and can it claim to enforce fundamental rig