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.