1. These four revision petitions are by the Deputy Commissioner of Agricultural Income Tax and Sales-Tax, and raise common legal issues. They together seek to vary the orders by the Appellate Tribunal, that have sustained the dealers' objections to being assessed to sales-tax. The facts in these petitions are that for the assessment year 1953-54, the dealers had been held under the Madras General Sales Tax Act, IX of 1939, liable to pay sales tax on rubber sold at Fort Cochin, that then formed part of the Madras State; and the appeals by the dealers were rejected. The Appellate Tribunal has upheld the objection against the tax on the ground of the commodity being agricultural produces and sales by the plantation owners being excluded from the definition of turnover under the Act.

2. In T.R.C. 8/58 the respondent is Messrs. Sherneilly Rubber and Cardamon Estates Ltd., Ayalur, which was then within the Travancore-Cochin State, and the turnover determined by the assessing authority for the purposes of the tax is Rs. 69,122-7-4. In this petition the tax disputed is on the entire turnover. In T.R.C.9/58 the respondent is Messrs. Sivalokam Estate, Kuzhithurai, now at Nagercoil, which also was then part of the Travancore-Cochin State and the turnover amounts to

Rs. 3,26,921/-, on which the disputed tax amounts to Rs. 5,108-2-3. In T.R.C. 11/58 the respondent is Messrs. the New Ambadi Estates Ltd., Trivandrum, whose estate was outside the Madras State and the turnover, on which the tax had been levied, comes to Rs. 2,80,682-7-4 the tax amount being Rs. 4,385-10-8. In T.R.C. 12/58 the respondent is Messrs. Kamadhenu Estate, Kuzhithurai, and the turnover, on which

this dealer has been assessed, is Rs. 29,121-1-11, the tax levied being Rs. 455-0-3. The aforesaid turnovers are prices of rubbers sold by the dealers at Fort Cochin during 1953-54, which the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer discovered in the first petition, from the accounts of M/s. Peirce Leslie & Co. Ltd., and in the other three from the accounts of Messrs. Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd.

3. The objection to the assessments rests on S.2(1) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, whereby the sales by persons of their agricultural or horticultural produce are excluded from the definition of the word 'turnover' and it was urged that rubber being the agricultural produce of the several respondents, they cannot be charged to sales tax under S.3 (1) (a) of the Act. The aforesaid two provisions in detail are:

"S. 2 [i]: 'turnover' means the aggregate amount for which goods are either bought by or sold by a dealer, whether for cash or for deferred payment or other valuable consideration provided that the proceeds of the sale by a person of agricultural or horticultural produce grown by himself or grown on any land in which he has an interest whether as owner, usufructuary mortgagee, tenant or otherwise, shall be excluded from his turnover."

S. 3 [1] subject to the provisions of this Act, [a] every dealer shall pay for each year a tax on his total turnover for such year; and [b] the tax shall be calculated at the rate of three pies for every rupee in such turnover:-"

xxx xxx xxx xxx

4. The Appellate Tribunal has held that rubber was agricultural produce, the sales had been by the Estates that had grown the commodity from which the rubber been got, the price obtained from such sales at Fort Cochin would not constitute the dealer's 'turnover' and therefore would not attract the liability under S.3 (1). Before us, the correctness of the aforesaid conclusion is challenged on the ground that the Act having been passed by a State Legislature, and, having regard to the territorial limits of the enacting authority, the word 'land' in S.2 (I) would mean land within the Madras State, so that produces from rubber estates beyond the boundaries of the enacting State would not be of the land, that the State Legislature intended to save from the sales tax. The next reason urged against the Tribunal's order