Judgment

WANCHOO

( 1 ) THESE six petitions under Art. 32 of theconstitution raise a common point and will be dealt withtogether. The main question raised in all these petitionsis whether the State-Governments are entitled to tax thethree Ayurvedic preparations, namely Mirtasanjibani,mritasanjibani Sudha and Mritasanjibani Sura, which aremanufactured by these petitioners, under the various Exciseact in force in the respective States. Further points wereraised in the petitions as regards the validity of therestrictions imposed in the matter of the import, export,possession and sale of these three Ayurvedic preparations. But the learned counsel for the petitioners stated before usthat he was not pressing any other point except one viz. ,whether the various State-Governments could tax these threeayurvedic preparations under the various Excise Acts inforce in the States concerned. We propose therefore to dealwith this point only in the present cases.

( 2 ) THE case of the petitioners is briefly this. They carry onbusiness as manufacturers of medicinal preparationsaccording to the Ayurvedic system of medicines and among theayurvedic medicines manufactured by them are these threepreparation