( 1 ) THE Union of India along with Collector, Customs and Central Excise, Guntur and Additional Collector of Customs, New Customs House, Port Area, Visakhapatnam has moved this Court under article 226 of the Constitution of India for a declaration that section 2 (e) of the A. P. General Sales Tax Act, as amended by Act 18 of 1985, is ultra virus the Constitution of India as well as arbitrary and a consequential direction to refund to them Rs. 4,45,077. 38 being the sales tax collected by the respondent - State of Andhra Pradesh. According to them, whenever there are violations of the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962, goods involved are confiscated, they are put to sale and upon the sale of such goods the State Government has been imposing sales tax. They have been paying the tax until, however, they learnt that the Collectors of Customs of Bombay and Calcutta had filed writ petitions in their respective High Courts and the High Courts of Bombay and Calcutta had granted stay of collection of sales tax on the proceeds of sale of confiscated goods under the Customs Act, 1962. Deciding, for the said reason, to move this Court in the petition they, i. e. the Union o