BALASUBRAHMANYAN, J.

These are cases in which penalties have been levied under section 22(2) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959. The levies of penalty are questioned on two grounds : (i) that they are unconstitutional, and (ii) that they are not valid even under the Act. The constitutional issue is raised in the writ petitions. The issue as to the propriety of the penalties is raised in the tax revision cases. We shall first deal with the tax revision cases and then proceed to deal with the writ petitions.

Section 22(2) of the Act enacts that if any one collects sales tax or purports to collect sales tax in contravention of section 22(1) he shall be liable for penalty up to one and a half times the amount so collected. Section 22(1) will be contravened under three different sets of circumstances : (i) where sales tax is collected by a person who is not a registered dealer at all; (ii) where even a registered dealer collects tax on transactions which are not taxable at all under the Act; and (iii) where a registered dealer collects tax even on transactions at a rate higher than that at which they are taxable under the Act. That these are the contraventions of se