VEERASWAMI, C.J.

Since this batch of petitions raises a common question, they have been heard together. The petitioners are sugar manufacturers and they have been assessed to sales tax. Sale of sugarcane was chargeable to tax at a percentage, which has been varying, according to the amendment in force at the relevant time at the point of last purchase. This is provided for in entry 62 of Schedule I read with section 3(2) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959. To take a typical case, in W.P. No. 396 of 1970 the assessee is Cauvery Sugars and Chemicals Limited. The assessment year is 1968-69. Section 14(1) of the Madras Sugar Factories Control Act, 1949, as amended by Madras Act 1 of 1962, levies a cess at a certain rate on sugarcane brought into any local area specified in a notification for consumption, use or sale therein. The liability to pay cess is on the assessee. This appears from rule 11 of the Madras Sugar Factories Control Rules, 1949. Under this rule within a fortnight of the close of each month, the occupier of a factory should pay into the treasury the amount due as cess on the quantity of sugarcane which had entered the factory during the previous month. The Joint Commercial Tax Officer, Esplanade Division I, considered the cess so paid by the assessee as part of the purchase turnover chargeable to tax. The price of sugarcane is, as empowered by section 12 of the Sugar Factories Control Act, fixed by the Government from time to time. The price per tonne of sugarcane at the start of the year in question stood at Rs. 85, but in the course of the year with effect from a specified date, it was reduced to Rs. 80. The assessee having paid at the rate of Rs. 85 made debit entries against the relative producers-sellers as to the deficit. The Joint Commercial Tax Officer declined to allow deduction from the chargeable turnover the difference on account of the reduction in the purchase price.The assessees contend that the cess paid, by no means, formed part of the purchase price and that the department was in error in disallowing deduction of the difference in price as re-fixed for a part of the year. In three of the petitions a further contention is raised as to the validity of the levy of the cess itself under section 14(1) of the Madras Sugar Factories Control Act, as amended by Madras Act 1 of 1962.

As to the first of these contentions, for the reasons to be presently stated, we are of opinion that it is valid and should be upheld. We have already mentioned that tax on sugarcane was payable at the point of the last purchase and by the buyer. "Turnover" is defined in section 2(r) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959, to mean the aggregate amount for which goods are bought or sold for cash or for deferred payment or other valuable consideration. Turnover is, therefore, the totality of the price paid as consideration for each transaction of sale or purchase. The question whether cess paid by the buyer formed part of the purchase turnover would depend upon whether it was part of the consideration for the purchase. Such a consideration should of course be related integrally to the purchase transaction and must be to the benefit of the seller. But an examination of the Madras Sugar Factories Control Act as to the nature and incidence of the cess shows that it does not and is not intended to form part of the consideration for the purchase of sugarcane by the assessee. That Act provided for the licensing of sugar factories and regulating the supply and the prices of sugarcane used in such factories and for other incidental matters. The crushing of sugarcane is regulated by a system of licensing and the quantity that shall be crushed is part of the conditions of a licence issued under the Act. Certain obligations are cast on the occupier of every factory, a term defined as including the managing agent or other person responsible for the management of the factory, one of which is that the occupier should intima