JUDGMENT

FAZL ALI, J.:—This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment and order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court dated April 23, 1974 dismissing the writ petition filed by the appellant before the High Court for quashing the orders of the Assessing Authorities imposing tax under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 on the basis of a number of sales made by the appellant Company in pursuance of multifarious contracts of sale. The appellant Company was formed in pursuance of an agreement dated June 8, 1962 between the President of India and the Central Provinces Manganese Ore Co. Limited. Before this agreement the said Company which will be hereafter referred to as the C. P. M. O. C. was a private company incorporated in the United Kingdom and carried on the business of extracting manganese ore from several mines in the erstwhile States of C. P. and Berar and Bombay. By virtue of the agreement referred to above a new Company was formed under which the Government of India, the Government of Maharashtra and the Government of Madhya Pradesh held shares in the ratio of 17% each whereas the original Company C. P. M. O. C. retained shares to the extent of 49 per cent. Thus the position was that in the present commercial venture the Central Government had preponderance of shares. The appellant, after the formation of the new Company, was known as Manganese Ore (India) Ltd. which will hereafter be referred to as the M. O. I. L. Fresh leases to extract the minerals from the various mines were issued by the Government in favour of the M. O. I. L. and the Company entered into contracts with buyers in India and outside for selling the manganese ore extracted from the various mines situated in the States of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

2. A close analysis of the contracts entered into by the appellant Company and the business carried on by it would manifestly reveal that the contracts may be divided into four separate and clear categories.

3. Category-I are the contracts by which the manganese ore extracted by the appellant company is sent directly to a foreign company known as M/s. Philips Brothers on f.o.b.terms. Another such contract was entered into by the appellant with B.I.S.C. (Ore) Ltd., London for sale of oriental manganese ore f.o.b. Visakhapatnam. Copies of these contracts were filed before the High Court as Annexures Q & R. The Regional Assistant Sales Tax Commissioner accepted the contention of the appellant that so far as the sales under these contracts were concerned, they occasioned export and were clearly exempt from the Central Sales Tax Act as they fell within the purview of Section 5 (1) of the said Act. We might also mention here that the main dispute between the parties is regarding the applicability of Sections 3 (a), 4 (2) (b) and 9 of the Central Sales Tax Act, according to which the State of Madhya Pradesh was competent to levy tax on the sales made by the appellant in the course of which the manganese ore moved from the State of Madhya Pradesh to other States in India. The main contention of the appellant before the High Court as also before the Sales Tax Authorities was that all these sales were outside sales and not in the course of inter-State trade or commerce and therefore the provisions of the Central Sales Tax Act did not apply. The Assistant Sales Tax Commissioner negatived the contention of the appellant and hence a writ petition was filed before the High Court. We might also mention that the writ petition was filed by the appellant company before the High Court even before taking recourse to the normal procedure laid down under the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1958. This was obviously done because the appellant chose to assail the levy of tax 412 on the ground that the Sales Tax authorities did not possess any jurisdiction to impose the tax inasmuch as the sales were not at all covered by the Central Sales Tax Act. We have stress this fact particularly because before High Court the appella