The question for determination in each of these petitions is whether the assessee is entitled to the benefit of the proviso to section 2(i) of the Madras General Sales-Tax Act IX of 1939 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’), and as such entitled to exclude from his turnover the proceeds of the sales of arecanut in the assessment year, that is, whether they were sales by a dealer of "agricultural or horticultural produce grown on land in which he had an interest whether as owner, usufructuary mortgagee, tenant or otherwise."

That the assessee was a dealer as defined by the Act was never in dispute. The finding of the Appellate Tribunal, which differed from the departmental authorities on that point, was that the cured arecanut sold by the assessee was agricultural or horticultural produce. The correctness of that finding was not challenged, and the arguments before us proceeded on the assumption, that the arecanut sold by the assessee was horticultural produce within the meaning of section 2(i) of the Act. The question that remains was whether that arecanut was "grown on any land in which the assessee had an interest whether as owner, usufructurary mortgagee, tenant