Sales of sugarcane took place in Tamil Nadu and were liable to sales tax under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959.

ISMAIL, J.

The petitioner herein is a sugar mill in Kerala State. It applied to the Government of Tamil Nadu for drawing sugarcane from about 3, 000 acres of land in Coimbatore and Pollachi taluks for crushing at its mills in Kerala. The Government of Tamil Nadu granted the permission subject to certain conditions. Thereafter the petitioner-sugar mill entered into contracts with the growers in Coimbatore and Pollachi taluks for the purchase of sugarcane. One of the forms of the agreement had been produced before us. According to the terms contained in the agreement, the cane shall be delivered at the factory premises of the petitioner herein and the petitioner shall pay the grower the statutory or controlled or Government minimum price for the accepted sugarcane after inspection and weighment subject only to deduction of any advance, mutually agreed to in writing between the grower and the occupier, prior to such delivery. For the purpose of purchasing the sugarcane so contracted for from the growers, admittedly, the petitioner opened offices at Coimbatore and Pollachi. In those offices, the sugarcane inspectors of the petitioner were functioning. They visited the fields, inspected the sugarcane and the finding of all the officers is that they also took delivery of the sugarcane from the fields in Coimbatore district and arranged for the transport of the sugarcane to the factory under the cover of the delivery note in form XX. The delivery note in form XX produced before us shows the petitioner itself as the seller as well as the buyer. It is admitted that the petitioner alone figures as the consignor as well as the consignee. On these facts all the authorities came to the conclusion that the sales of the sugarcane took place in Coimbatore District in Tamil Nadu and consequently the said transactions were liable to sales tax under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959

Mr. C. S. Chandrasekara Sastri, the learned counsel for the petitioner, contended that the findings of the authorities in this behalf are opposed to the facts of this case and the said findings are erroneous. According to the learned counsel, the sales in this case took place in the course of inter-State trade and did not constitute local sales taking place in Tamil Nadu and, therefore, could not have been taxed under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959. In support of this contention, the learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the following facts :

1. In the agreement entered into between the growers and the petitioner there was a specific stipulation for the delivery of the sugarcane by the growers at the factory premises of the petitioner at Kerala;

2. There was the provision for payment of price as fixed by the Government or the controlled rate after inspection and weighment at Kerala and the said price included the transportation charges which had been deducted by the petitioner before payment was made to the growers;

3. Since the delivery has been made at the factory premises in Kerala after inspection and weighment, the property in the goods could not have passed before that event and, consequently, the sale cannot be said to have taken place in Tamil Nadu; and

4. From XX of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Rules cannot be relied on to the exclusion of the other documents, particularly the documents disclosing the facts referred to above and in form XX the petitioner happened to figure both as a seller and a buyer only because the growers who supplied sugarcane were not dealers and could not get themselves registered as dealers.We are of the opinion that none of these factors pose an insurmountable difficulty to the authorities holding that sales in the present case took place within the State of Tamil Nadu. As we pointed out already there was no dispute about the fact that the petitioner has opened offices at Coimbatore and Pollachi and at those offices the cane inspectors of the petition