JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:—This phalanx of appeals, over 200 strong, has stagnated for eight years and slowed down other disposals, which is unfortunate.

2. We believe that the price of healthy justice from the highest bench is eschewal of all but those cases which possess the twin attributes of, (i) substantial question of law of general importance, (ii) which need to be decided by the SC itself, whether the jurisdiction be under Article 133, 134 or 136. Such being the jurisdictional dynamics of the SC, save in exceptional cases of appalling injustice, we hope the Bar will share this concern and avoid a breakdown for, truly, the question today is : To be or not to be.

3. All these appeals spring from a common demand for tax by the State of Uttar Pradesh from a number of sugar mills on the purchase of sugarcane at a rate regulated by weight, not value, a pragmatic novelty in the sales tax pattern which has provoked an argument about its validity. Legal ingenuity, which rich mills, making common cause, could summon, spun out several constitutional and other challenges to the levy in the High Court, all of which became casualty when the Division Bench delivered judgment. Even so, the memoranda of appeals have set forth an imposing array of grounds of varying merit, all save three of which, by the wise husbandry of counsel, have been mercifully abandoned. The three survivors deserve no better fate but it behoves the court to state the triple challenges presented from various angles and ratiocinate at some length to reach the litigative terminus. One or two more minor matters, which figured in the debate at the bar, may, however, be noticed in the course of the stride.

4. Far more facts and a fuller projection of the law may be in place here. We are concerned with a levy under the U. P. Sugarcane (Purchase Tax) Act, 1961, (for short, the Act). Sales tax, item 54 in the State List, was once described in the thirties by a far-sighted Chief Minister and nation-builder, Sri C. Rajagopalachariar, as a Kamadhenu. True to his prescience, every State, today, relies heavily on this levy for which the common man eventually pays heavily. Uttar Pradesh, which grows sugarcane and runs sugar mills in the private sector, hit upon a tax on the purchase of cane by millers who manufactured sugar and khandsari, at differential rates, but it is a heritage from the thirties. A little legislative history, mixed with tentative in ferences, illuminates the legal controversy since appellants counsel set much store by this as an auxiliary circumstances.

5. A broad brush projection of the fiscal story and background economy may now be attempted, although we regret that no authoritative material, beyond what can be culled from the High Court judgment, is forthcoming. We will make do with it although litigants, especially in the battle-field of unconstitutionality, must produce the socio-economic bio-data of challenged legislation, explaining the how, the why and why not of each clause lest lay minds, lost in legal tuning, should miss meaningful sound and social sense which experts may explain. Law cannot go it alone-nor lawyers.

6. Many States in India grow sugarcane, all of which, save negligible quantities, suffer crushing and its sucrose content is recovered as sugar, khandsari and, on a cottage industry basis, as gur. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh not only grow sugarcane but enjoy purchase tax, a majority of which levy by weight rather than on price. And we cannot lose sight of the All-India impact when the law is laid down under Article 141. Judgments of this Court are decisional between litigants but declaratory for the nation.

7. Sugar is an export item and, of course, is a daily necessary at home. Uttar Pradesh, according to the Report of the Tariff Commission on the Cost Structure of the Sugar Industry and the Fair Price for Sugar (1969) has the he