The power to confiscate goods is ancillary to the power to tax sales or purchases and is necessary to prevent evasion of tax.

( 1 ) (W. P. No. 971 of 1962)This is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for the issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Guntakal, to deliver back the goods, seized by him from lorry No. A. P. A. 1599 on 13th September, 1962, under the following circumstances. The petitioner grows sugarcane and converts the same into jaggery and sells it through commission agents. On one occasion, the petitioner entrusted 120 bags of jaggery out of which 115 belonged to him and 5 to a relation of his for the purpose of sale. The said bags of jaggery were sought to be transported to Kurnool under a way bill covering only 115 bags as belonging to the petitioner. During, transit the lorry was checked and as some of the goods were not covered by the way bill, the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Guntakal, seized the entire stocks of 120 bags. On receipt of information, the petitioner filed his objections and in spite of repeated requests pointing out the urgency for the disposal of the goods,, the petitioner did not get any reply from the authority, but came to know that his commission agent at Kodikonda received a notice that the jaggery would be sold on 25th October, 1962. Without even passing an order of confiscation of the goods, the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer gave notice to sell the goods in public auction as they were of a perishable nature. Before the order of confiscation could be passed, the petitioner filed this application challenging the action of the Commercial Tax. Officer on two ground firstly, that section 29 of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales tax Act, 1957 in so far as it provides for confiscation of goods, is ultra vires of the legislature and secondly, that in any event, the said power of confiscation is invalid as it violates the fundamental right of the petitioner guaranteed to him under Article 19 (1) of the Constitution of India being an unreasonable restriction on the holding of property.

( 2 ) W. P. No. 1044 of 1962.-This is an application under Article 226 of the constitution of India for the issue of an order in the nature of mandamus directing the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer, Rajampet to return the goods confiscated by him from the petitioner under the following circumstances : The petitioner is a firm of merchants doing business in various commodities including fertilisers. On one occasion, the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer, Rajampet, made a surprise inspection of its godowns and discovered that certain quantities of goods in the petitioner s possession have not been accounted for in its books of account. After taking the necessary statements from the petitioner, the Assistant Commercial tax Officer confiscated the goods which were not accounted for and passed an order to the said effect on 16th October, 1962. Without filing an appeal against the order of confiscation, the petitioner filed the present writ petition to this Court raising two questions firstly that section 28 (6) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales tax Act, 1957 is ultra vires of the State Legislature and secondly, that in any event,, the said provision of law offends Articles 14 and 19 (1) (/) and (g) of the Constitution of India. We would have been extremely reluctant to entertain these writ petitions at the instances of the parties who have failed to pursue the remedies provided under the act, except for the fact that the cases were posted before a division Bench by a learned Judge of this Court on the ground that they raised questions challenging the vires of the statute and also questions of constitutional validity. As these two writ petitions involve common questions they are being disposed of by common judgment.

( 3 ) POINT No. 1.-The first point raised before us is that section 28 (6) and section 29 (3) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act in so far as they provide for confiscation of goods, are ultra vires of the State Legislature and that