S.S.Sandhawalia, J.

1. Whether the mere despatch of manufactured goods to a place outside the State, is synonymous or analogous to the "consignment of goods in the course of inter-State trade or commerce", as specified in entry No. 92-B of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India (recently inserted by Section 5 of the Constitution (Forty-sixth Amendment) Act, 1982) and therefore, is now within the legislative competence of Parliament alone for the levying of tax, to the total exclusion of the State Legislature, has come to the fore as the spinal question in this set of twenty-one writ petitions.

2. The background in which this issue has come to be raised calls for a brief resume at the very outset. The State of Haryana, in the purported exercise of its power under Section 9 of the Haryana General Sales Tax Act (hereinafter called "the Act") had issued the notification, annexure P-2, dated 19th July, 1974, inter alia imposing the incidence of tax on the despatch of the manufactured goods to a place outside the State to its branch or commission agent or any other person on behalf of the manufacturer. This imposition was assailed by a number of manufacturers