Hon’ble Rajes Kumar, J.—In all the above writ petitions, a common issue is involved. The Writ Petition No. 1664 of 2004, M/s Hindustan Lever Limited v. State of U.P. and others, is treated as the leading case and for the purposes of the decision the facts of only the leading case are being referred herein below.

2. The petitioner M/s Hindustan Lever Limited is a Public Limited Company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, established a unit at Orai for the manufacture of toilet soap, fatty acid, etc. The unit had undergone expansion by making an additional investment of more than Rupees 50 crores.

3. The petitioner filed an application on 14.8.1997 under Section 4-A of the U.P. Trade Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as “Act”) in the prescribed Form 46 under Rule 25 of the U.P. Trade Tax Rules (hereinafter referred to as “Rules”) for grant of benefit of expansion under the Notification No. 640 dated 21.2.1997.

4. The Divisional Level Committee granted eligibility certificate on 30.11.1998. The eligibility certificate granted the benefit of exemption from tax in respect of toilet soap under the expansion Scheme while in respect of fatty acid exemption from tax was granted under the diversification Scheme.

5. The exemption from tax under the expansion Scheme was granted for the period of 27.2.1995 to 26.2.2010 or to the extent of Rs. 68,41,51,230/- whichever is earlier on the turn over of toilet soap and under the diversification Scheme the exemption from tax on the fatty acid was granted from 1995 to 26.2.2010.

6. In the present case we are concern with the exemption under the Expansion Scheme.

7. Under the expansion Scheme exemption from tax was available under Section 4-A of the Act on the production in excess of the base production which was to be determined in accordance to the Notification dated 21.2.1997. Under Section 4-A of the Act and the notification, base production is defined as the maximum production of one assessment year of preceding five consecutive assessment years or 80% of the annual production capacity whichever is higher. In the case of petitioner, the base production was determined at 35,658 metric tonnes for which there is no dispute.

8. During the course of assessment proceedings for the year 1999-2000 and 2000-01 the petitioner claimed exemption from tax on the quantity of the production in excess of the base production. It appears that the petitioner had sold its manufactured product inside the State of U.P. as well as out side U.P. and had also transferred the goods outside the State of U.P. by way of stock transfer and by consignment sale. It may be mentioned here that the stock transfer/consignment transactions are not liable to tax under the State Act as well as under the Central Sales Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the “Central Act”) as they do not fall within the purview of sale.

9. The assessing authority was of the view that the petitioner was liable to tax on the turnover of the quantity of the base production and was entitled for the exemption only on the quantity over and above the production in excess of the base production and the goods transferred by way of stock transfer and by consignment sale would not be included in the base production. With the aforesaid view the assessing authority calculated the quantity and the turnover of exemption.

10. Being aggrieved by aforesaid view of the assessing authority the petitioner filed the present writ petition. The writ petition was entertained and an interim order was granted in the year 2004.

11. During the pendency of the aforesaid writ petition, the Writ Petition No. 278 (Tax) of 2004, Ambika Steel Private Limited v. State of U.P. and others, came up for consideration before a Division Bench involving similar issue. The said writ petition was decided on 28.9.2007 wherein it has been held that stock transfer and branch transfer are not included in the “turnover of sales” under the notification and the contention of the asses