J. V. GUPTA, J. - This judgment will dispose of Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 1573 and 6099 of 1983 and 510, 4140 and 4505 of 1984 as it is a common case of the parties that in case it is held that the transactions in question are not sales then all the writ petitions are liable to be allowed.

For facility of reference, these cases can be classed in two categories, i.e. :

(i) C.W.P. No. 1573 of 1983 : which is by the Food

Corporation of India

against the State of

Haryana, calling in

question the sales tax

imposed on it under the

Haryana General Sales Tax

Act for the procurement

of rice by it through

State agency under the

Haryana Rice Procurement

(Levy) Order, 1979;

(ii) C.W.P. No. 6099 of 1983, : which are also by the Food

C.W.P. No. 510 of 1984, Corporation of India against

C.W.P. No. 4140 of 1984, the State of Punjab calling

C.W.P. No. 4505 of 1984, in question, inter alia, the

sales tax imposed under

section 4B of the Punjab

General Sales Tax Act for

the procurement of rice by it

through the agencies of the

State under the Punjab Rice

Procurement (Levy) Order.

Since, as already stated, the fate of all these writ petitions depends upon the decision whether the transaction of supply of rice to the Food Corporation of India under the Levy Orders amounts to "sale" or not, it would be pertinent to notice in brief the facts as they emerge from C.W.P. No. 1573 of 1983 and are relevant, since that has come up before us on reference by the learned single Judge.

According to the writ petition, the petitioner is a Corporation established under the Food Corporation of India Act, 1964 (Act No. 37 of 1964). It procures rice, paddy and other foodgrains in the surplus State through the aegis of the State Government and its officers, and distributes the foodgrains so procured to the deficit States in India. Though it is registered as a dealer under the Haryana General Sales Tax Act and the Central Sales Tax Act for other foodgrains, it is not a dealer vis-a-vis the transactions of the procurement of rice and the subsequent supply by it to the agencies or depots outside the State of Haryana. In pursuance of the instructions of the Central Government, the Government of Haryana promulgated the Haryana Rice Procurement Price Control Order, 1968, as also the Haryana Rice Procurement (Levy) Order, 1979 (hereinafter referred to as the Levy Order). The procurement price of the rice is fixed under these Orders and the different officers of the State of Haryana procure rice on behalf of the petitioner-Corporation with the funds made available by it to the Director of Food and Supplies Department, Haryana. The procured rice is delivered to the Central pool under the supervision and control of the Corporation. It procured rice from the State Government in the years 1970-71 and 1971-72 in the similar circumstances as are in vogue now and the sales tax authorities then created a demand of tax to the tune of Rs. 1,63,87,225.46 against it on account of sales tax and it filed Civil Writ Petition No. 4065 of 1973 in this Court which was allowed by the Division Bench on May 17, 1975, and the decision therein is reported as Food Corporation of India v. State of