RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR, J.

These are petitions for the issue of writs of prohibition directed against the Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Non-resident Special Circle, Madras, requiring him not to take further proceedings in pursuance of the notice issued by him to the respective petitioners. The point raised by the writ petitions at the stage of the final argument was as regards the constitutional validity of the Sales Tax Laws Validation Act, 1956 (Central Act VII of 1956) (which we shall refer to as the impugned Act).

Before discussing the legal point raised, it would be useful to set out the main facts of the three cases which are nearly identical.

The petitioner in W.P. No. 37 of 1955 is the Mysore Spinning and Manufacturing Company, Bangalore. This company, which manufactures textile goods in Bangalore City was effecting sales in the State of Madras and the goods were delivered in Madras in pursuance of such sales. The Deputy Commercial Tax Officer issued a notice to the petitioner on 25th November, 1954, remaining it of an earlier notice of his requiring the petitioner to have itself registered as a dealer in regard to the four quarters of 1953-54 and the first two quarters of 1954-55 up to the date of the communication and to submit the returns as regards the sales effected within the State. The petitioner was threatened with a prosecution in default of its compliance. The facts in the other two writ petitions are almost identical except that while the petitioner in W.P. No. 76 of 1955 is a mill in Bangalore the petitioner in W.P. No. 490 of 1955 has its factory and registered office at Bombay.

In the affidavit in support of these petitions as originally filed the claim made was that the sales effected by these non-resident companies were sales in the course of inter-State trade or commerce within Article 286(2) of the Constitution and that the law of the State, namely section 22 of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, which purported to levy tax on these sales was repugnant to the provisions of this Article of the Constitution and was therefore void. The first two petitions were filed in January 1955 and the last one in July of that year. While these petitions were pending, the Supreme Court delivered their judgment in the Bengal Immunity case (Bengal Immunity Co. v. State of Bihar on 6th September, 1955, and there is now no controversy that if the law stood as declared by that judgment the transactions of sale which are sought to be assessed in these cases would have been covered by Article 286(2) of the Constitution and would therefore be exempt from such taxation. By the time these petitions came on for hearing however the Central Government had promulgated Ordinance III of 1956 and the Central Legislature had repealed and re-enacted the provisions of the Ordinance by the Sales Tax Laws Validation Act, 1956 - the impugned Act.The proper construction of the Sales Tax Laws Validation Ordinance, 1956, which is in terms identical with the impugned Act came up for consideration before us in Tax Revision Case No. 129 of 1955, Mettur Industries Ltd. v. State of Madras We have explained the scope of the legislation and the taxes which are validated by it. In the course of our judgment we explained the position thus :-

"............the effect of section 22 was to render a sale 'within the State' one which fell under the explanation to Article 286(1)(a), so that, from that date, such sales became taxable under the Sales Tax Act, notwithstanding that in some cases an inter-State element might have been involved in the transaction. This really did not affect the enforceability of the levy in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the United Motors case which held that 'Explanation sales' were outside the fetter imposed by Article 286(2). But when this view was overruled by the Supreme Court in the Bengal Immunity case the position which emerged was that though these sales were 'inside' sales for the purposes of the Sales