Sushil Kumar Jha, J.

1. In pursuance of a direction, of this court by an order dated 19th August, 1968, at the instance of the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Bihar, Patna, the Commercial Taxes Tribunal, Bihar (hereinafter called "the Tribunal"), has submitted a statement of the case and referred three questions of law to this court, This tax reference has thus been made under Sec.33 (3) of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 (hereinafter called the "act" ).

2. The assessee, a partnership-firm, was registered under the Act as a dealer in timber. In the course of assessment of sales tax for the year 1962-63, it claimed a deduction of a sum of Rs.49,418.29 from its taxable turnover on account of sales of timber in the course of inter-State trade or commerce to some dealers in Neyamatpur in the State of West Bengal and Amritsar in the State of Punjab. The Assistant Superintendent of Commercial Taxes, Hazaribagh, by Us order dated 26th December, 1964, held that the transactions in question were intra- State sales since there was no written contract of sale between, the assessee and the purchasers in fulfilment of which the movement of goods outside the State of Bihar had been occas