The judgment of the Court was delivered by

SARDAR ALI KHAN, J. - The ten writ petitioners in this case are the roller flour mills who pray for the issue of a writ of mandamus declaring that the levy of sales tax under section 5 of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957, on maida, ravva, atta, sujji and bran is illegal, unjust and offending articles 265, 286 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India and consequently pray for a direction to the respondents to refund the entire sales tax collected so far on maida, ravva, atta, sujji and bran from the petitioners.

The petitioners allege that they purchase wheat through Food Corporation of India or from various markets in North India. They are engaged in disintegrating the wheat through mechanical process and the resultant products, like maida, ravva, atta and other products, are obtained for being sold to the various consumers for the purpose of consumption as food-stuff. The petitioners are paying sales tax either under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (Central Act No. 74 of 1956), hereinafter referred to as "the Central Act" or under the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 (Act No. 6 of 1957), hereinafter referred to as "the State Act", or both, depending on the event of sale or purchase. The question, therefore, raised in this writ petition is whether sales tax could be levied under section 5 of the State Act on maida, ravva, atta, sujji and bran, which are obtained by disintegrating wheat and converting the same into the abovesaid products.

Under section 14 of the Central Act certain goods have been declared to be of special importance in inter-State trade or commerce. Under the said section it is declared that cereals, like paddy, rice, wheat, etc., mentioned therein are goods of special importance for the purpose of inter-State trade or commerce. These cereals, which have been named as such in section 14 of the Central Act, come within the category of declared goods. It may be seen that cereal wheat is mentioned in clause (i)(iii) of section 14. In the same section 14, certain other materials like coal, including coke in all its forms but excluding charcoal is mentioned at clause (i-a). Similarly under clause (iv) of section 14 iron and steel with all its by-products like pig iron and cast iron including ingot moulds, bottom plates, iron scrap, cast iron scrap, etc., is also mentioned as coming within the category of declared goods. It is noteworthy that while certain categories of by-products have been mentioned by name which are obtained from the main product like coal or iron and steel, as indicated above, no mention is made of any of the by-products obtained from wheat which has been mentioned as a cereal by itself. The other products like ravva, atta, maida, sujji and bran, which are obtained after disintegrating wheat, are conspicuously absent from the list of declared goods given under section 14 of the Central Act. Under section 15 of the Central Act certain restrictions and conditions in regard to tax on sale or purchase of declared goods within a State are provided. It is stated in section 15(a) that the tax payable in respect of any sale or purchase of the declared goods inside the State shall not exceed four per cent of the sale or purchase price thereof and such tax shall not be levied at more than one stage. Under clause (b) of section 15 of the Central Act it is stated that where a tax has been levied in respect of sale or purchase inside the State of any declared goods and such goods are sold in the course of inter-State trade or commerce and tax has been paid under the Central Act in respect of the sale of such goods in the course of inter-State trade or commerce, the tax levied under such law shall be reimbursed to the person making such sale in the course of inter-State trade or commerce in such manner and subject to such conditions as may be provided in any law in force in that State. It may be mentioned that under article 301 of th