B. N. SRIKRISHNA, C.J. –

These writ petitions under article 226 of the Constitution of India impugn the levy of service tax on the taxable service provided by cellular telephone service providers.

O.P. No. 4973 of 2001 :

Petitioner is engaged in cellular telephone business within the State of Kerala. Apart from providing cellular telephone services to its subscribers, it is also engaged in selling cellular telephone instruments, subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and other accessories. The petitioner purchases the cellular telephones, SIM cards and other accessories from States outside Kerala by paying Central sales tax. For selling the products within the State of Kerala, it pays 12 per cent sales tax under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 (hereinafter referred to as "the KGST Act"). According to the petitioner, the sale of the instrument and the SIM card to its customers is only a "sale pure and simple" exigible to sales tax under the KGST Act. One peculiar service it renders is activation, on which service tax is leviable. Activation is a process by which the subscriber form details, scheme/plan details, deposits, etc., brought in by the sales team is man